Spell it Out
by Aikori Ichijouji
Summary: Dabbling in love magic always comes with dire consequences. Particularly when the spell caster does so in haste and misses very important details. One small mistake suddenly turns into big trouble for our favorite pair. This is the story of how they get themselves out of it... if they even want to. AU.
1. True Love's Curse

**CHAPTER 1: True Love's Curse**

Kyoko smeared her eyeliner as she rubbed at her eyes with one hand while flipping through a large book with the other. She didn't care about the inevitable black circles that would halo her eyes afterwards. It would match nicely with her puffy, red eyes anyway. She ran out of tissues an hour prior and wasn't about to try cleaning makeup out of her clothing, so she bypassed using her sleeves.

Pages flew past her face as she scanned the words on them before flipping them to look at the next one below. She searched wildly through the book, the bangles on her left hand clinking with each swoop. Several more pages were pushed aside before she stopped somewhere near the middle. This one _definitely_ looked promising.

She ran a finger over the runic characters at the top of the page and smiled weakly. Yes, this would cure her of this stupid affliction for sure. Making her way over to the small kitchen in her apartment, she washed the makeup residue from her hands in the sink before rummaging through her special pantry for the items she'd need. She made sure to keep these supplies separate from the canned soups and cereals in her actual pantry in the off chance that someone accidentally decided they were actual culinary ingredients.

Nudging the pantry door closed with her foot, her arms were full of bottles of strange liquids, paper packets and bundles of dried twigs wrapped in twine as she toddled her way back to the table where the book lay. She fumbled around trying to find the bit of chalk she used the day before during practice. Once she retrieved it from where it rolled under the armchair, she drew a circle and a few symbols on the tabletop. Pulling out her trusty, carved wooden bowl from under the table, she placed it inside the chalk circle and began pouring, sprinkling and breaking various items into it.

Half-burned candles soon surrounded the bowl and she lit them in the proper order as she carefully said the incantation from the book. She held her hands over the bowl and continued chanting for the required amount of time and watched as the ingredients in the bowl bubbled and fizzled until it was nothing more than a pile of black ash. Blowing out the candles, she lifted the bowl and carried it outside onto her balcony where she blew the ash into the wind. Exhausted from a combination of emotions and spellcasting, she promptly locked her balcony door, turned off all the lights in her apartment, and went to sleep.

The next morning, she instantly regretted falling asleep without dressing for bed. Her clothes were wrinkled and created uncomfortable pressure points while she slept that ached when she woke. In addition, her pillowcase was now stained with her makeup. She groaned and trudged to her bathroom to shower and change. Work was not going to wait for her to take her time to get her act together. Kanae depended on her to help run the shop.

* * *

"What happened to you after that delivery yesterday?" Kanae asked when she walked into the shop later that day. "I thought you said you were sick."

"For all intents and purposes, I was," Kyoko grumbled.

She told Kanae everything about how she stumbled upon her—now former—boyfriend's 'meeting' with a female member of his coven that was in no way professional, or proper for that matter. Her friend looked on with sympathy as she shared the excruciating details, cringing occasionally at the more graphic parts of her story. A buffet table was certainly not to be used in such a fashion.

"Well, good riddance to him," she said finally. "I always knew he was bad news."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she groaned.

"It wasn't my place to say anything," Kanae shrugged. "You're a grown adult, Kyoko. I can't make your decisions for you."

"Thanks," she drawled begrudgingly.

"Anytime," she gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "Now, do you want me to whip up something for you? I'm sure I've got a potion that can probably help."

"No need. I already took care of it."

"How?" Kanae asked, intrigued.

"I found a love avoidance spell last night."

"Kyoko," she warned. "You know love magic is extremely volatile and dangerous."

"Don't worry, I only cast it on myself. It's supposed to make me immune to love, I think. So no one will fall in love with me and I won't fall in love with them."

Kanae pondered this for a moment, then shook her head, "If this backfires, I'm reserving the right for a full fifteen minutes of throwing it in your face before I even consider helping."

"It'll be fine, trust me."

"Famous last words," she snorted. "Anyway, since you've been emotionally traumatized, I'll take care of the deliveries for today. Are you good to hold down the shop on your own?"

"You can count on me!" Kyoko said with a mock salute.

Kanae swept out the door with several packages in her arms and her car keys dangling from one hand. Once she was gone, Kyoko busied herself with dusting the cases and cleaning the glass until it shined. It was a slow day at the shop and she was grateful to not have to interact with a large number of people. She was still out of sorts from the day before, so her ability to keep her 'customer service' facade intact was not at its usual level of competence.

She felt the buzz of the ward on the door as someone walked in before she heard the chime of the bell. In the middle of organizing envelopes of dried ingredients, she looked up to see a tall man in a long, black coat come in. His dark, chin-length hair hung in his face like it was purposely styled to do so. At first glance, he looked mildly intimidating until she looked closer and saw the gold and white striped collar peeking out of a sage green sweater, navy slacks and the unassuming look in his eyes. He wasn't intimidating at all. Unless you count intimidatingly attractive.

The fact that she could look at him objectively and decide that, yes, he was indeed handsome without any of the accompanying metaphorical butterflies gave her hope for the spell she did the night before.

Pasting on her sunniest smile, she greeted him once he reached the counter, "Welcome! Is there something I can help you find today?"

He stood there in silence for a moment and just stared at her before he nodded quickly and reached into inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a piece of paper.

"I was given a list," he said, putting the paper on the counter in front of her.

She picked it up and scanned through each item, nodding at the ones she knew were in stock.

"I think I can put all of this together for you. If we're out of anything, we can order it and let you know when it comes in, if you'd like."

"That'd be wonderful, thank you," he almost sighed the words.

As she turned and began to open drawers to pull out the items, she covertly looked him up and down in the mirror behind the counter and inspected his clothing once more. They were perfectly tailored and looked fairly expensive.

"It's not often we get witches from uptown coming here," she remarked over her shoulder. "Did your local supplier run out?"

"My coven typically has our orders delivered, but we hadn't finalized the list until this morning and it was too late to put in an order for today," he sounded strained, as if he was having trouble getting the words out.

She ignored his awkward speech pattern and turned back to him to ask, "Warrens or Vandersud?"

"I'm sorry, what?" he was clearly looking at her face, but his eyes seemed to be out of focus until she spoke to him.

"Which coven, Warrens or Vandersud?" Kyoko asked again. "They're our only regular clients from uptown."

"Uh, Vandersud," he mumbled, scratching at the back of his neck and looking away nervously.

"I deliver to them all the time," she said, eyeing him warily. "I've never seen you before."

"Taking care of getting supplies is usually not my responsibility," he coughed, then shrugged. "But, I'm glad I agreed to help today."

"Oh? Why's that."

"Ah, because I get to meet the... lovely person who helps keep us stocked every week," he nearly choked on the second half of his sentence.

"Thanks, I guess," she looked at him strangely.

He nodded and hummed his agreement, clamping his lips tightly together.

"Here's everything except for the birch bark," she handed him a small cardboard box. "We'll be getting more later in the week. Since you typically get deliveries, I'll just arrange to take it to you by Friday. Sound good?"

He nodded again, his lips still resolutely fused together.

"Will there be anything else?"

"I'd love to— I mean, no. No, there is nothing else."

"Are you sure?"

He screwed his eyes shut and muttered a few words to himself that she couldn't quite make out. His hand grabbed onto one of the tarnished brass buttons on his coat and he ran his thumb over the surface in a clockwise pattern. After doing this for a few moments, he opened his eyes to turn a scrutinizing glare at her.

"Okay, seriously, how are you doing this?" he suddenly asked, sounding frustrated. "Is it some sort of affinity spell?"

"How am I doing what?"

"Maybe it's an enhanced glamour of some sort," he pondered aloud. "I don't understand how it's strong enough to affect even me."

"I'm sorry, but what are you talking about?" she stared at him like he had grown twelve heads.

"The entire time I've been in this shop, you've been driving me to distraction and it's taking everything in me to not blurt out how breathtakingly beautiful I think you are. If you aren't doing it on purpose, I suggest you figure out who, or what, has charmed you because I can't stop staring at your lips and wondering what they taste like," the words tumbled out of his mouth all at once, leaving him out of breath and flushed by the time he finished.

"I… uh…"

"And, apparently, that focusing spell did not last as long as I thought it would," he grumbled, clearly irritated. "Now that you've succeeded in making me embarrass myself, I'm going now. Goodbye!"

He hastily picked up the box in front of him and all but bolted through the door and she stared blankly as it slammed behind him in his wake.

"What was _that_ all about?" Kyoko asked the empty space he left behind.

By the time Kanae returned from deliveries, several other customers—both male and female—visited the shop without incident. When her boss settled back behind the counter with her, she began animatedly telling her about what happened earlier. She looked at her thoughtfully before speaking.

"Kyoko, what spell, exactly, did you use?" she asked carefully.

"It was one from the books we have on reserve in the back. I'll show you."

She disappeared and returned quickly with a large leather-bound book in her hand. Opening it to the same page as she used the night before, she pointed out the spell.

"See? It says 'Love Avoidance' right there. I followed it to the letter."

Kanae looked at the page for a long moment before she blinked, and did it again for good measure.

"Well, the good news is the spell probably didn't backfire."

"And the bad news?" Kyoko asked hesitantly.

"You mistranslated this symbol," she pointed to one particular character in the title at the top. "When it's turned to the left it means 'avoidance,' but this one is turned to the right which means…"

"Seeking," Kyoko completed her sentence, looking horrified. "It was a love seeking spell."

"Not just any love seeking spell," Kanae corrected. "A _true_ love seeking spell."

Kyoko groaned loudly and let her head smack against the countertop.

"Well, before I get into my promised fifteen minutes of 'I told you so,' let me first congratulate you on finding your true love."

True to her word, Kanae lectured her for a full fifteen minutes about the dangers of performing spells and incantations while emotionally compromised. Kyoko listened dutifully while bemoaning her own fate. She _would_ mistranslate a spell and get herself into a mess of this caliber. Letting her own emotions get her into trouble was the hallmark of her personality and one would think she would know better by now. Apparently not. Kyoko was forever destined to get herself into self-inflicted scrapes as sure as the sun rises in the East.

Once the shop closed that evening, she joined Kanae for dinner at their favorite diner. They chatted mostly about inconsequential things in order to keep her mind off the bluder she made the night before. It worked, for the most part, until she was alone at her apartment. She took the book home with her, along with a few others, and spent the remainder of the night researching if there was any way she could possibly reverse the spell. For the second night in a row, she fell asleep still wearing the clothes from earlier in the day.

* * *

When she arrived at work, Kyoko was greeted with the sight of an ostentatiously large bouquet of lilacs, mallow, sprigs of witch hazel and… striped carnations? She carefully gave the vase that held it a wide berth as she entered the shop. It looked top-heavy and the last thing she wanted was to clean up scattered flowers and glass shards. Kanae had an unamused expression on her face when she finally looked away from the floral monstrosity to greet her.

"What's the deal with the flowers?" she asked. "I thought you weren't seeing anyone."

"I'm not," her friend said pointedly. "They're for you."

"They're _what_?!"

"Oh, yes, your mystery man from Vandersud has sent you the most confusing bouquet in the history of the language of flowers." she said, gesturing to the mass of intimidating foliage.

"Then, how do you know it's from him?"

She pushed a small, white envelope across the counter towards her with one finger. Kyoko opened the flap and slowly pulled out the card contained within. The card was embossed with a fleur-de-lis in the center and made from high quality paper. On it, a note was written by hand and contained only two lines of text.

"My waking thoughts have been consumed by you since yesterday," Kyoko read slowly, then frowned when she got to the second line. "Please, make it stop."

"He probably still thinks you've done this intentionally," Kanae said with a giggle. "You'd do well to explain to him what really happened. It's a shame he had to be another witch. If he was a normie, he would've just obsessively courted you and you'd just have to set up some wards to keep him away."

"That situation wouldn't be preferable either!" she whined in dismay. "And how am I supposed to explain anything to him when I don't know who—wait, who's R.T.?"

She flipped the card around to show Kanae the initials scribbled below the note. Her friend plucked it swiftly from her fingers to look at it again, laying it flat on the counter before her.

"I'm guessing he enchanted it so only the true recipient would be able to reveal the name of the sender," she said with a slow nod. "He's talented. Very impressive."

"Will you _please_ stop being impressed and help me fix this?" Kyoko pleaded angrily.

"No, no, hold on a second, I'm thinking..." Kanae looked pensive, like she was trying to remember something important. "Oh! Oh my!"

"What? What?!" she asked frantically, trying to get an answer.

"You said he was tall, right?" Kanae asked for confirmation. "Long-ish dark brown hair and eyes? Obscenely handsome?"

"Yes, sure, whatever but what—" she began when Kanae interrupted her.

"Holy shit, Kyoko, do you have any idea what you've done?!" she asked, nearly hyperventilating.

"No, I don't, because you won't actually _tell_ me what this is about!" Kyoko nearly screamed her reply.

"I was wrong when I simply congratulated you yesterday. I think this would be more appropriate," Kanae got up from the stool she sat on behind the counter and applauded.

"Not. Helping," the other woman ground out through clenched teeth.

"Kyoko, my dear, your true love is none other than the head of the Vandersud coven himself," Kanae tapped a perfectly manicured nail against the initials written on the note card. "Ren Tsuruga."

The words drifted into her ears, scrabbling to find purchase somewhere so she could fully comprehend them. Once they latched on, the realization forced a squeak out of her mouth. It continued and grew in pitch until it petered out into a croak when she ran out of breath. Her feet shuffled along the ground like a shambling, reanimated corpse until she reached the stool beside Kanae where she promptly collapsed onto it.

Kyoko was well, and truly, _screwed_.

* * *

 **BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: Well now you know what I've been spending some of my break working on (when I'm not writing ridiculous fics about Ren being a sphinx). I've finally added some more meat to the bones of the oneshot I wrote for Ren/Kyoko week 2018. So many of you agreed that it absolutely _must_ be it's own multi-chapter fic and I was spurred on to work on it.**

 **As an added bonus, I decided to release three chapters at once. Since most of you have already read the first one, I couldn't just give you one extra chapter and leave you in the lurch until I get the time to updated it. So, here is a gift from me to you. Enjoy!**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	2. Worst Laid Plans

**CHAPTER 2: The Worst Laid Plans**

"I can't do this alone, Kanae. You have to come with me," Kyoko begged desperately.

Friday finally arrived and the promised delivery to Vandersud hung ominously over Kyoko's head. While her friend eventually managed to convince her to talk to the head of the coven and explain the circumstances behind the unfortunate spellcasting, she was not prepared to do it by herself. Short of getting on her hands and knees, she beseeched her friend to accompany her. Said friend looked at her, wholly unamused before rolling her eyes and sighing with feigned reluctance.

"Fine."

"I didn't think you'd agree to it so easily," Kyoko admitted in shock after a brief pause. "Honestly, I prepared at least three more minutes worth of groveling."

"You'll just have to save it for next time. Besides, I'm curious to see just how badly this spell is affecting him. If the card and bouquet he sent is anything to go by, this will be highly amusing."

"You laugh at my misfortune," Kyoko pouted.

"Only because this is exactly the sort of trouble you'd get into."

Truthfully, Kanae was concerned enough to know she shouldn't send her alone. Despite gaining the attention and affection of the head of one of the city's most prestigious covens, she had also incited his ire. Crossing someone that influential was bound to come with some heavy repercussions. If anything, she would help Kyoko make a proposal to fix the problem and, hopefully, petition for some leniency.

They arrived at the coven's uptown headquarters that afternoon; an opulent, four-storey brownstone townhouse. Once they completed their delivery responsibilities, they requested an audience with the coven head and were ushered up a flight of stairs and asked to wait in a sitting area outside a pair of highly polished wooden doors. Kanae reclined on the plush loveseat while Kyoko chose to fidget uncomfortably on a padded armchair while they waited. An assistant came by and brought them hot tea served in delicate china cups that made Kyoko wonder if she was supposed to point her pinky finger outward while she drank from it.

By the time they were fully overwhelmed by the nearly stifling luxury that surrounded them—it took approximately ten minutes—the double doors opened and a man with light brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses stepped out. The two women turned to him expectantly and he gave them a polite smile.

"Miss Kotonami and Miss Mogami?"

They both stood and nodded in response to his question.

"I'm Yukihito Yashiro, Assistant Head of the coven," he introduced himself. "I'm told you have something important to discuss with Ren?"

Kyoko struggled to respond so Kanae smoothly took over for her.

"Yes, it's in regards to an interaction he had with my employee at my shop earlier this week. We simply wanted to clear up the matter, if we could, and explain the rather peculiar circumstances behind it."

"I see. And by 'employee,' I assume you mean Miss Mogami here?" he asked, motioning towards Kyoko, who remained pale, paralyzed and silent.

"That is correct."

"Considering what he's told me about whatever spell or enchantment seems to be involved with this situation, I doubt he'll want to see her," he admitted, before a smirk crept onto his face. "However, he's been bothering me all week with this so I've half a mind to let her in there anyway."

"Oh, really?"

"I've had to listen to him ponder aloud what he thinks her favorite color is or if asking her on a dinner date would be too forward before immediately turning around and angrily forbidding me from ever discussing the matter again. If you had to endure the kind of conversational whiplash I have for the past few days, you'd react the same way.

Kanae's smile mirrored his and she let out a small laugh. He was a man after her own heart and she instantly took a liking to him.

"I like the way you think. Let's bring her in with us," she spoke in a conspiratorial stage whisper.

Kyoko let out a tiny squeak and ducked behind her friend.

"Please don't send me in there," she entreated with a whine. "He'll probably magically lobotomize me and banish me to an uninhabited island."

"More like tie you up and banish you to his bedroom," the man thought he muttered it quietly enough, but Kanae's frown told him he was a little too loud.

"Kyoko, this whole predicament is your doing anyway. You need to be the one to explain yourself."

Reluctantly, she nodded, knowing Kanae was right.

"Alright," she groaned.

"Allow me a minute to… prepare him for your arrival. I'll return momentarily to see you inside."

With that, Yukihito slipped back through the doors for a short time before they opened again and he poked half his body out into the waiting room. They walked over to the door when he beckoned them with one hand. Opening the doors wider, he gestured for them to enter ahead of him.

The office was intimidatingly large and neither woman was able to keep their eyes from wandering as they took in the expensive oil paintings hung on the walls and the tall, mahogany bookshelves filled with old leather volumes of spell books and antique magical paraphernalia. Kyoko pressed herself closer to Kanae's side as they neared the desk at the far end of the room where a dark-haired man sat, regarding them stoically over his clasped hands.

"What can I help you with, Miss… Kotonami, was it?"

"I believe the person you should be addressing is Kyoko here," she said firmly, stepping to one side and gesturing to the woman idling nervously behind her.

"No, no, I'm quite satisfied to speak with you exclusively," he sneered haughtily. "As exquisite as your companion is, she is somewhat of a detriment to my ability to properly express myself."

Kanae huffed and folded her arms, giving the man a pointed glare. All previous thoughts of helping with the negotiations flew out the window along with her politeness. If he was going to be childish and treat Kyoko like she wasn't even in the room, she was not going to stand for it.

"Well, I'm not here to be her translator," she snapped. "As I am both her employer and your supplier, I came as a neutral third party to arrange an opportunity for you to sort this out. But, this is explicitly between the two of you."

"Miss Kotonami, please—"

Completely ignoring the man's plea, she gestured towards the timid woman standing beside her.

"Since you were unable to be properly introduced last time, I will be nice and do it for you. This is Kyoko Mogami, third-year student at LME and my employee for the past year," her lips tilted into a crooked grin. "She also likes sweets, fairy tales and long walks on the beach."

Kyoko sent her a glare before stammering in a tiny voice.

"N-nice to meet you."

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm leaving the rest to you."

To emphasize her point, Kanae stepped away from Kyoko and sat primly on the gilded sofa placed off to the side. Stunned into impressed silence, Yukihito quietly joined her and the pair waited patiently to see what would happen next. A guttural sigh escaped the lips of the coven head as Kyoko stiffly walked closer to him with lurching steps.

"I-I discovered what the cause of our situation is," she began shyly. "There was a spell I cast the night before you came to the shop that seems to be the culprit."

Kyoko pulled her phone out from her pocket and began scrolling through the photos on it before she came to the image she wanted. She'd taken a photo of the spell from the book she borrowed before returning it to Kanae. Turning the screen to face him, she approached his desk and reached across it, offering the device to him. When his fingers brushed against hers as he took the phone, both winced at the surprisingly pleasant shudder that passed through them.

"A true love seeking spell?" he mocked her openly. "Did they stop warning first-years that love magic is exceedingly unstable or were you just not paying attention in class?"

"I should know better and I'm sorry," she apologized. "This never should've happened."

"But, this is an old spell, and an extremely difficult one to successfully cast at that," he examined the image of the spellbook thoughtfully. "By all rights, this shouldn't have worked for a novice. It seems you are as adept at spellcasting as you are beautiful."

His face softened, his voice became wistful and Kyoko's cheeks cycled through several shades of pink and red before finally stopping at crimson. She spluttered her words, unsure as to whether she should thank him or refute his statement. Her brain decided to randomly pair some consonants and a vowel together.

"Guh?"

Ren cleared his throat loudly, rearranging his face to the sternest expression he could summon.

"Anyway, what exactly were you trying to accomplish with this spell? Were you pining after some boy in your class, hoping that he'd notice you?"

He said it so disdainfully, like he was removing a dirty piece of gum stuck to his shoe. Yukihito was right about the whiplash bit, she admitted. It was wholly unnerving to watch him vacillate between lovestruck and condescending.

"NO!" she protested a little too loudly before adding in a quieter tone. "Goodness, no. It was the opposite, actually, and I made a huge mistake."

"Mistake?"

"I thought it was a love _avoidance_ spell because I read the rune incorrectly. I kinda went through some... recent trauma and wanted to avoid relationships altogether."

Kyoko tried to remain as vague as possible as to her reasoning. The last thing she wanted to do was give this man an overly detailed account of her romantic misadventures. Considering the condition he was already in, thanks to her spell, she didn't think that would go over well.

"You're saying that I'm forced to restrain myself from vaulting over this desk and ravishing your mouth until you're gasping for breath because of a _mistake_?"

The words were out of his mouth before he could even think of stopping them. As a result, they stared at each other in shocked silence, his cheeks taking on a hue similar to that of Kyoko's, whose own were now bright with an almost radioactive glow.

"Damn, we should've made some popcorn for this," Kanae whispered in disappointment to her companion on the sofa.

"I can always have an assistant send some up," the man beside her offered.

"If that involves you getting up, don't bother. I have a feeling you're not going to want to miss a second of this."

"I… we… well," Kyoko floundered before shaking her head and leaning forward to yank her phone from his hands. "What I'm saying is that I want to fix this. You know, reverse the spell and put everything back the way it should be?"

He lifted an eyebrow and looked at her with no small amount of skepticism.

"So the fact that you have enamoured one of the most powerful warlocks in the city is not something you wish to exploit?"

"It's really, really not," she said emphatically. "In fact, I'd rather we forget this whole mess ever happened."

Kyoko hoped that wasn't a faint pout she saw cross his face, but the snickering from the peanut gallery sitting just behind her told her it definitely was. She shot them a scowl over her shoulder.

"But, according to this spell, we're meant to be," he pressed with a hint of disappointment. "Soulmates, even. That doesn't intrigue you at all?"

"I'd rather have the freedom to choose on my own without a spell telling me. I'm not keen on having some random ingredients in a bowl and a few chanted words dictate who I'm supposed to spend my life with," she said, unable to hide the bitterness in her tone.

As her idyllic belief in love had been shattered pretty recently, her thoughts on romantic destiny and soulmates suffered a similar fate. Her eyes narrowed at him, like she was daring him to try arguing the point any further. Wisely, he backed off.

"I see. Well, the fact that you want to rectify the situation as opposed to taking advantage of it is… admirable."

It was obvious from the way his mouth twisted on the last word that he had waged war against his own tongue to make sure he didn't say anything (else) untoward. He looked over to where his Assistant Head sat and addressed him directly.

"Please give Miss Mogami access to the coven libraries. Set her up as a probationary member, if you must. She will have one week, starting Monday, to find a reversal for her spell."

"And what happens if I don't find one in time?" she challenged.

"Then I'll have no choice but to get the authorities involved. While this more than qualifies as a gross misuse of magic, I am delaying that because it was unintentional. But, I cannot very well run a coven while being constantly distracted by you."

"Wait, only a week? That's all?" Kanae asked in disbelief.

"It's alright," Kyoko assured her friend, who was taken aback by the sudden determination in her voice. "I'll do everything I can to put things to rights before then. Thank you for your understanding and for use of your resources."

Truthfully, this had gone a lot better than she anticipated and Kyoko was loathe to not accept the olive branch that was extended. Despite his obvious displeasure with the situation, he was being reasonable. And she would be too. Had their roles been reversed, she doubted she would have been as understanding. Besides, the coven was known to have an extensive private library with a collection of older books that surpassed even the one at her school.

"Anything for— I mean, you're welcome," he corrected with an awkward nod. "If you encounter any difficulties, you can contact Mr. Yashiro with questions."

"Of course. Thank you again," she said before turning to leave.

Kanae rose to join her and the two women were escorted out of the office by the second-in-command, who then instructed the same assistant they'd met earlier to set up Kyoko's membership so she could return to the coven the following week. Once the pair was sent on their way, he sauntered back into the office, closed the door behind him and leaned against it. Crossing his arms over his chest, he examined Ren from across the room. He watched the man shake his head silently to himself before burying his face in his hands.

"So," he began, barely containing the smile that threatened to curl his lips. "That went well."

"Don't patronize me," Ren grunted from behind his hands.

"And am I correct in assuming you plan on avoiding her next week?"

"Yes. I'll be sequestering myself to this office for the duration," he confirmed.

"Couldn't you have just taken the week off? I'm pretty sure I can handle things in your stead for that long."

"Our quarterly Board meeting is the week after next."

He looked at the younger man dubiously. That sounded like a flimsy excuse to him.

"And all the materials for that meeting have been compiled in advance. Not to mention I've already held a Board meeting as your proxy at least once before. What's the real reason, Ren?"

Folding his arms on the desk, Ren pushed his face into the crook of one elbow and mumbled his reply. Yukihito leaned forward in a mock attempt at trying to decipher his muffled words.

"I didn't catch that. How about you try that again without hiding and maybe enunciate this time?"

"I can't be trusted to stay away from her if I'm alone," he said, lifting his head with a woeful sigh.

"Ah, so, you're in need of a babysitter?"

The reproachful glare Ren sent across the room caused the hairs to stand up on the back of his neck. He laughed nervously.

"What was stopping you before?"

"I didn't know who she was; only where she worked. But now I know her name and that she's studying at LME. I sent her flowers the day after meeting her, for crying out loud. There's no telling what I might do in a moment of temporary insanity. Therefore, I need to be here and I need as many distractions as possible."

"Have you considered that, maybe, you _should_ spend time around her?"

"Yes, by all means, let's give me ample opportunities to scare her away. I can barely keep a filter intact when I speak to her," Ren's words were stuffed so full of sarcasm, they were splitting at the seams.

"So I noticed," his associate said in a monotone.

"Yes, and you found it rather funny, didn't you? Don't think I didn't hear you and Miss Kotonami tittering like gossiping debutantes."

"That… is beside the point," Yukihito defended hastily. "What I meant is you could treat it like a sort of immunotherapy. The more exposure you have to it, the easier it'll be for you to build up a resistance."

"And you would have me foist myself upon her when she clearly has no interest in anything other than finding a resolution for our problem?"

"I didn't say you should try to date her," The older man shook his head. She's clearly not looking for that sort of thing anyway. Just get to know her so she's not just some random stranger who happened to catch you on the wrong end of a spell. Why are you always so adamant about keeping your distance from everyone? You know very well this is not the first time you've been like this."

Ren continued to look unconvinced and Yukihito threw his hands up in defeat.

"Fine, I won't say any more. The decision is ultimately yours anyway."

"Thank you."

The following silence lasted all of five seconds. Ren was certain of this because he had counted, waiting for the inevitable.

"I just think that, if you two are supposed to be predestined or something, it couldn't hurt to find out _why_ instead of treating each other like you don't exist."

And, there it was. He smiled knowingly.

"What happened to not saying any more?" he asked in amusement.

"Oh, please, you've known me long enough to know I wouldn't end it there," the man scoffed.

"True, but I never pegged you as a hopeless romantic," Ren teased.

"The only hopeless one here is you, Ren," he shot back. "I'll leave you to your pining over a woman you barely know."

"No, don't—"

But, it was too late. His Assistant Head had already left, shutting the door quietly behind him. He groaned in frustration. Hadn't he _just_ made it clear that he could not be left alone? Frantically searching his desk for something to distract him, he came up empty. All of the requests he received earlier in the day were already signed.

It was getting stronger again, the buzzing in his head that started the day he met Kyoko. Most of the time, he could keep it at bay by focusing on something else but, anytime he was around her or not otherwise distracted, it would double in intensity. That was when he would typically do, or say, something stupid. Worst of all was the fact that there was nothing he could do to stop it, short of letting it run its course.

He hated that buzzing and the impending ill-advised behavior that often followed it.

By that point, it had reached a fever pitch and he sharply muttered a curse before picking up his phone.

* * *

 **THE SECOND CHAPTER IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST: When you're trying to expand on a one-shot, that next chapter is one heck of a struggle. I wrote and rewrote this one several times because, while I tried to keep it lighthearted and funny, it would suddenly get serious and dark without my permission. That was when I knew I couldn't work on this and Anomalous at the same time. Anyway, you didn't come here to see me babble, go read the next chapter. I know you're dying to!**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	3. Fanning the Flames

**CHAPTER 3: Fanning the Flames**

Kyoko was on the warpath when she entered the coven on Monday afternoon. Long, quick strides took her up the stairs and she ignored the frantic pleas of several of the members as she rushed by them towards Ren's office. Once she reached the large doors, she put all of her strength into violently shoving them open. They parted with an elongated squeal and banged shut behind her as she stormed into the room.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" her voice was white hot with anger and her face contorted in a grimace.

Ren looked up from his computer screen and eyed her dubiously.

"I could ask you the same thing as you are the one currently barging into my office unannounced."

"That is not the issue here."

"Then, by all means, please enlighten me," he fought to maintain a tone of indifference, but his mind refused to let go of the notion that the woman before him was undeniably attractive when incensed.

The room suddenly felt several degrees warmer to him.

"You have _no_ right to contact the Dean and request that my course load be adjusted to fit your ridiculously tight schedule."

Focusing on their argument was a decent enough distraction to keep him from blurting out any malapropos but, heavens, she was downright adorable when she stomped her foot like that. Once her words finally registered in his love-addled brain, he frowned at her.

"I believe it was you who agreed to the terms of having one week to find a solution."

"That's because you left no room for negotiation and I was just glad you didn't try to have me arrested on sight."

"What, pray tell, is your complaint then?"

Feeding off of her anger was doing wonders for helping him stay calm. The fact that witnessing her irate expressions and actions were extremely pleasurable was just icing on the cake. Depending on how long they were going to be stuck like this, he would have to try this tactic again.

"This issue is between the two of us," she gestured between them. "I hoped we would keep it that way but, now, I have professors asking me what I'm doing at Vandersud that's so important that the due dates on my upcoming assignments are to be given automatic extensions."

"I'm sorry, I thought that you would find that helpful considering the time constraint," Ren folded his arms across his chest, looking not the least bit penitent. "It seems that someone is being a bit of a choosy beggar."

Something inside Kyoko snapped and her right eye began to twitch. She balled her hands into fists and stomped closer to Ren's desk, stopping when her hips collided harshly with the wooden edge. Raising one hand, she jabbed a finger threateningly in his face.

"Well, if you're so interested in resolving this as quickly as possible," the accusatory finger was then pointed towards his office door. "Then get your ass down in that library and actually _help_ me."

Ren stared intently at her finger and his blood boiled him alive from the inside. She was absolutely, unequivocally, a veritable _goddess_ when she was demanding. His brain short circuited and he floundered for an answer.

"I… can't."

"If you're not magically tethered to your desk by some kind of binding spell, then I think that's a load of bullcrap."

Fiery. Fiery was a good way of describing her, he thought. Fiery and irresistible. But, he digressed and she was expecting an answer. He cleared his throat.

"You know very well what happens when I spend extended periods of time around you. If you wish to be spared exposure to any of the inappropriate comments or behavior your spell compels me to do, you would not demand such a thing."

Kyoko rolled her eyes and huffed. Ren yearned for those eyes to focus on him once more.

"I think I can hold my own against the consequences of my own actions for a few days. Besides, if we work together, you'll be rid of me that much quicker."

She had a legitimate point, he considered; his thoughts finally cleared of their lovelorn leanings for a moment. It was in both of their interests to work together, though he couldn't help but hear the triumphant laughter of his Assistant Head in the back of his mind. His long, low sigh echoed through the office, followed by the errant drumming of his fingers against his desk.

"Fine, I will assist you," he watched her face brighten considerably and a bolt of warmth shot through him along with the desire to ensure that her face never looked any less radiant than it did in that moment. "However, I will need several minutes to compose myself. Alone."

Kyoko raised an eyebrow, her nose wrinkled at some strange thought that crossed her mind.

"I'm going to go with my better judgement and not even ask about that," she abruptly turned away from the desk and waved over her shoulder as she walked back towards the doors. "I'll see you downstairs."

Ren spent several minutes pacing the length of his office with worried strides. This was then followed by multiple failed attempts at meditation. Realizing he was not making any progress, he gave up and left for the library.

He found her at a table towards the back. A fond smile spread across his face when he realized she'd, unknowingly, picked his favorite spot in the entire place. Three books were neatly stacked on the table beside her and she was reading intently through a thicker volume, her brow cutely wrinkled in concentration. Ren relished the sight for a few seconds before he made his presence known and pulled out a chair beside her.

"You actually came," Kyoko didn't bother to look up from her book.

"Did you doubt that I would?"

"Perhaps," she intoned, briefly licking her finger before effortlessly flipping to the next page. "I wondered if you agreed just to placate me so you could come up with an excuse later as to why you couldn't make it."

"I'd never do such a thing," he scoffed at the very idea. "Even without the effects of this spell."

"Think you're a man of integrity, do you?" Kyoko finally looked up, eyeing him with obvious suspicion.

"I try to be," he gave her an odd look.

"Hmm, we'll see."

"What is that supposed to mean, exactly?"

"Just that," she shrugged. "We'll see."

Deciding to ignore her odd comment, he focused on the task at hand. He pointed to the sizeable tome she currently held.

"Are there any other volumes I can get for you?"

"Not sure, honestly. This is what I've picked out so far," she showed him the titles of the books she'd placed beside her. "If you think there's anything that might be supplementary or helpful in anyway, I'm open to suggestions."

He nodded, "Can I get another look at the original spell? It might help narrow down my search."

Kyoko pulled her phone out of her pocket and scrolled again through the photos on it until she came to the image of the spell. Handing it to him, he looked at it again, but more carefully this time. Once he was satisfied he had all the information he could get from it, he handed it back to her and left to request a few books from the reference desk. There were several books he knew she wouldn't be able to access without special permission, so he took the liberty of getting those as well just in case they could shed any additional light on their predicament.

Returning to the table, he sat beside her and silently went through the books he'd collected for the next two hours. It was the only thing he could do to distract him from the smell of the woman beside him. She bore undertones of a subtle floral scent that mixed in with the pleasant vanilla-like smell that wafted over from the ancient books in the restricted materials section. He'd always loved that aroma and, now that it mingled with hers, the combination took the top spot on his list of favorites.

The words on the pages began to make less and less sense to him with each new book he opened. His nose had become too preoccupied with the fragrance that seemed to surround him. It was time to find another diversion.

"So, what did you tell them?"

Why his brain decided to choose the most non-sequitur opening to a conversation as an adequate solution, he couldn't say. Still, it got her to look up from her book in curiosity. It wasn't perfect, but he'd consider it a win.

"What did I tell who?"

"Your professors," he clarified. "When they asked about why I made that request to your Dean."

A sly smile worked its way across her face and she shook her head, "I told them I lost a bet."

Skeptical, he squinted at her.

"And they believed you?"

Kyoko snorted, "I'm one of their best students. They'd probably believe me if I told them the sky was purple."

"So modest," he deadpanned.

"This coming from the guy who personally called the Dean and had my assignments extended simply because he could," she lifted her shoulders with nonchalance. "Pot, meet kettle."

Ren laughed easily, revelling in the fact that, despite their proximity, he experienced none of the manic, amorous compulsions he had thus far. He figured, much to his chagrin, that Yukihito had been correct. Hopefully he would never have to openly admit it. At least not around any other witnesses.

"Speaking of that," she glanced at her watch and started to pack up her things. "I need to get going so I'm not late for my afternoon class. Did you find anything interesting?"

"Only a biographical account of Lory Takarada," he pointed to the last book from his stack. "I figured, since he was the creator of the spell, maybe we'd get a clue as to how it can be reversed. Since every magic user has a signature style, if you figure his out, you might be able to find the key to how it works."

"Oh, that's a good call," she smiled; his heart melted into a useless puddle of goo. "Mind if I take it home with me tonight to peruse?"

"You know very well I can't say 'no' to you. Not right now anyway."

"Well, I'll have to test that theory after we reverse the spell and see if it still holds true," she winked at him and he hoped his years weren't shortened by the fact that his heart forgot how to beat properly.

He watched her tuck the book under her arm and quickly exit the library with his head propped up by an opened palm. A longing sigh escaped him and he realized how absurd he must have appeared to the other members around him. Especially considering that their esteemed coven head was rarely seen spending extended periods of time around anyone if he could help it. He could barely bring himself to care.

Regardless, they needed to sort this out quickly. Despite the fact that spending time around her significantly reduced his propensity to say and do inappropriate things, it didn't change the fact that he was becoming increasingly smitten with each passing moment. He needed to be free of it before he started entertaining more elaborate fantasies. Like marriage.

He spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening strategically avoiding the internet and all jewelry shops. Still, he couldn't shake the dreams of placing a beautifully faceted, pear-cut pink diamond ring on her finger that night.

* * *

 **HERE'S WHERE WE STOP FOR NOW: Not sure when I'll be able to update this again since I have to get back on track with Anomalous soon, but I'll try to fit in updates when I can. Hope you've at least had a decent chuckle in the meantime. So, please, go ahead and fill up that review box with whatever comments/words of encouragement/puns/knock-knock jokes you want and I'll see you all again soon!**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	4. In Somno Veritas

**CHAPTER 4: In Somno Veritas**

The pleasant melody of her ringtone was made less so by the jarring sound of her phone vibrating against the hardwood surface of her bedside table. Kyoko lifted her bleary-eyed face from where it had previously been firmly pressed into her pillow and made several failed attempts to grab the offending device as it danced and skittered beside her until her fingers finally closed around it. Not bothering to check who was calling, she decided that, whoever it was, would get an unfiltered piece of her mind.

"If this is a marketing call, be advised that I will find you and I will hex you so hard, your great-great-grandchildren will feel it," she growled.

"I would love to see you try," came a taunting voice on the other end.

The fog cleared from her head in an instant upon hearing that familiar, sonorous voice. What the hell was he doing calling her so early? Furthermore, since when did he have her number?

"Ren, how did you get this number?"

"Your employer was kind enough to give it to me," came his matter-of-fact reply.

Kyoko made a mental note to herself to kill Kanae later. Maybe she would curse her first. Yes, a triple cursing followed by eventual death sounded like a good plan to her.

"And why are you calling at," she pulled her phone away to look at the time displayed on the screen, "four in the morning?"

"I found something I thought you might be interested in."

"And this could not wait until later because…?"

"I couldn't sleep," he supplied, finishing her sentence.

"Poor baby," she sounded not the least bit concerned.

A self-satisfied smile settled on her face at the sound of his frustrated sigh. If he was expecting sympathy for waking her up, he was sorely mistaken.

"It is hard to get a good night's rest when I can't stop thinking about you," his voice sounded husky and tired.

She cursed her traitorous heart for stuttering at his words. It's not as if he meant any of it, because the stupid spell was to blame. Still those words had never been said to her with such sincerity; at ungodly hours of the morning or otherwise. Banishing the sudden flood of warmth she felt, she focused again on the conversation.

"I suppose that's as good a reason as any," she rolled over onto her back. "So, what did you find?"

"I think this is something best shown in person."

Kyoko breathed silently for several seconds, trying to curtail the sudden rage that flared.

"You woke me up before sunrise and you want me to leave my extremely comfortable bed because you found something _interesting_?" she stopped short of screaming it into her phone only because she didn't want to wake her neighbors.

"I'm being denied proper sleep because of _your_ actions," he reprimanded her sharply. "Perhaps I was incorrect in assuming you would take responsibility. If my memory serves me correctly, we both agreed that we wanted to find a resolution to this as quickly as possible, did we not?"

That stopped her tirade in its tracks.

"I-I'm sorry."

"No, I should apologize," he exchanged his indignance for penance. "That sounded way less manipulative in my head."

Now that she had a second to think about it, she found she had to agree with him on that. Oddly appreciative of his self-correction, she conceded.

"Well, I guess I'm fully awake now anyway. I assume you're at the coven?"

"Yes."

"Is it even open at this time of the day?"

"I'm the coven Head," he reminded her. "I can come and go whenever I please."

"Yes. Right. Of course," clearly she was not as awake as she claimed.

"Call me at this number when you arrive and I'll release the wards to let you in," he instructed before his voice softened considerably. "And be sure to dress warmly. It's quite cold outside."

She did as he told her and called when she was standing at the entrance to the building. The realization that she now had the personal number of the leader of one of the most influential covens in the city was not lost on her as she pulled it up on her phone. They hung up after a brief exchange and she wrapped her coat tighter around herself against the frigid breeze. Moments later, the door unlocked before her and opened.

He stood just inside, dressed in jeans that appeared to be at least once size too large and a well-worn t-shirt with faded lettering. His hair was an adorable mess atop his head and Kyoko internally warred with herself for admitting that he was still attractive even in this state of dress. Dismissing the thought, she hastened inside the door to join him, exchanging quiet greetings. She was confused at first when he led her upstairs to his office, but soon realized upon the blast of toasty heat that pushed through the door when he opened it to let them in.

"It didn't make sense to heat the entire building when we're the only one's here," he explained, when he noticed her starting to shrug out of her coat.

She nodded in understanding and followed him over to his desk where he had several books laid out. When he reached out towards the arm over which she'd draped her coat, she looked at him strangely before handing it over.

"Here, I'll trade you," he took the coat from her outstretched hand and replaced it with a mug full of steaming liquid.

Bringing the mug to her nose, she sniffed and caught the rich, heady scent of coffee. She took a sip and hummed pleasantly at the flavor.

"Thank you," she said after savoring the first sip.

"I didn't know how you took your coffee... but I figured a hot drink after being out in the cold wouldn't be amiss."

She noticed the awkward pause after the first part of his sentence, like he was restraining himself from asking if it coincided with her taste in men. At least, considering his previous track record of random outbursts, that's what she imagined he would say next.

"This is perfect," she assured him. "I acquired a taste for black coffee after I got lazy while pulling all-nighters before final exams. Sometimes you're too tired for sugar and cream."

Ren chuckled fondy at her and shook his head.

"I don't miss those days."

"I long for the day when it's nothing but an unpleasant memory for me too," her laugh was short and rueful. "Anyway, you said you had something to show me?"

Ren invited her to sit in the chair he'd moved behind his desk alongside his own. Once they were both seated, he showed her a passage in the book he had open just in front of his keyboard.

"I found an account in another book written by a contemporary of Takarada's," he explained, handing the book over to her. "She described a conversation she had with him about the spells he had created."

She gently took the book from his hands and looked down at the passage he pointed out.

"After the consumption of an inordinate amount of spirits one evening, Lory confessed to me the secret to his spellcraft," Kyoko read aloud from the book. "He was well aware of his infamy for creating spells—particularly those that focused on love and relationships. That night, he divulged the secret that, while they appeared otherwise, none of his spells were permanent. He believed that reversals should be similar to the turning of a coin."

She took a few seconds to fully process what she read.

"So, all of his spells are reversible?" Kyoko asked, her voice hopeful. "Oh thank goodness."

Ren nodded sleepily with a knowing smile, "Keep reading."

"When I pressed for more details as to which spells were the reciprocals of others, he waved me away with a laugh," she continued from where she left off. "While his ethos may have compelled him to make his spells reversible, he had no inclination of revealing the solution. More fun was to be had from making the discovery on one's own, he declared."

Kyoko stared blankly at the words before her and took another slow sip of coffee.

"I honestly should not be surprised that historians have chosen to highlight the ravings of an absolute madman," she griped.

"Hmm?"

She looked over at Ren, whose head lolled against the back of his chair, his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open. Her lips quirked up in a smile and she let out a brief snort.

"Are you sleeping?"

"Mm, pretty voice. Soothing," he mumbled and she strained to make out his words. "Read more."

"Are you sure you don't want to stretch out on the sofa?" she cautiously reached out to poke the side of his face and was amazed to find he didn't budge.

"Only if you join me," well _that_ sentence came out crystal clear.

"When I said I could hold my own against you, that did not include you trying to jump me on your office furniture," she pointed out with a complete lack of amusement.

Ren's face wrinkled in disgust. He yawned and his body slumped to one side until his head rested on her shoulder. Kyoko was glad he was drowsed enough to miss the squawk that came out of her mouth when his body made contact with hers. Her face was instantly aflame and nonsensical syllables formed on her lips.

"Wouldn' do that," his words continued to slur together. "Not very nice."

"Then go lie down on the sofa and leave me here," she suggested again.

"Nooo," he whined, his face snuggling closer into her neck. "No leaving."

She pushed against his side, quietly trying to pry him off of her. It wasn't until his arm stretched out to snake around her waist that she reached her tipping point. Forcefully pushing back on her chair, she stood up and watched his body arch precariously over the armrest of his chair before he jolted awake.

"What happened?" he asked when his eyes finally focused on her face after several blinks.

"You fell asleep and turned into some sort of cuddle monster," that really was the best way she could describe it.

Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself and she tried not to think too hard about what shade of red her cheeks must have been in that moment.

"I didn't… do anything to you, did I?" he winced, waiting for her to tell him of his misdeeds.

"Short of using my shoulder for a pillow and, I think, trying to hug me? No."

Ren let his head fall into his opened palm, "It seems I cannot control myself when I'm not conscious. My apologies."

"It could've been worse, I suppose," she tried to shrug it off.

"Wasn't that bad enough?" he frowned at her blasé attitude.

"Well, if you've learned your lesson, then how about you go finish your nap on the sofa over there so I can keep working?"

Now that he was awake, she hoped the third time was the charm for her initial recommendation.

"Oh, yes, of course," he looked over at the sofa and back at her. "You don't mind?"

"It's fine. Go get some sleep."

The heavy-eyed look of gratitude on his face told her she gave the right response. She watched him settle onto the ornate piece of furniture and suppressed a giggle as he spent a few seconds trying to find the most comfortable configuration for his long legs. With a snap of his fingers, a soft blanket and fluffy pillow materialized out of nowhere and settled on his body and under his head respectfully.

"All that effort and you don't even adjust the size of the sofa to fit your body?" she muttered under her breath.

"It's an antique and extremely difficult to enchant without damaging the structural integrity," his voice was muffled by the blanket and pillow.

Kyoko covered up her shock at being heard with a snarky quip, "Not your first time napping in your office, huh?"

He tilted his head back on the pillow to look at her over the armrest with a smirk, "Not even close."

She couldn't hold back the laughter that burst from her lips. The dreamy-eyed way he looked at her at the sound of her mirth caused a return of the furnace in her face. Choking on a final giggle, she averted her eyes and coughed awkwardly into the crook of her arm.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, really," she scrambled for something to distract from her embarrassment. "Is the spell making you more concerned than usual or are you always this paranoid?"

"Is it wrong to be worried about someone you… respect?"

She raised an eyebrow at him and rested her chin against her hand, "Respect, huh?"

"Believe me, you don't want to hear the other options the spell has placed in my brain," he assured her.

"Right, no," she waved a hand frantically, as if to shoo away imaginary flies. "I'll take respect. Respect is good."

"I thought so," his voice was both sleepy and smug.

"Oh, go to sleep already," she rolled her eyes at his tone.

"Yeah, yeah," he turned over and resituated the blanket over himself.

Kyoko watched him for a few moments with a soft smile before she shook herself out of her reverie and turned back towards the books before her. Try as she might, it was hard to ignore how much she appreciated this side of Ren. Their first meeting was embarrassing and their second even more so. She didn't know if the spell was to blame—and she wouldn't be surprised if it was—but the gradual softening of his prickly exterior in her presence was a welcome change.

She tried her best to ignore the feelings her thoughts were causing. That was a dangerous road she swore she would never travel again. Despite the fact that he was handsome and kind and caring and he worshipped the ground she walked on _none_ of this was _real_!

Shaking her head, she forced herself to read more from the book she had in front of her. By the time she had skimmed through three more books and performed multiple online searches on Ren's computer, she was oblivious to the way her eyelids drooped. Her mug of coffee had long since been drained and she was feeling the repercussions of waking up so early. Still, she was pleased to learn that some scholars had discovered the counterparts to a number of Takarada's spells.

It seemed that the revered warlock was not without a sense of humor. Many of his love spells were counteracted by his curses or affliction enchantments, and vice versa. Love at first sight? Cancel it out with a blindness curse. Infatuation? Try a generous application of a temporary insanity enchantment. However, no one had yet to find one for her spell in particular. Many shied away from it due to the fact that it was purported to be a true love spell. No one wanted to risk the consequences of what would happen if they were incorrect.

When she picked up one of the other books on the desk, the last things she remembered were the crack of the spine as she opened it and the first sentence of the page she turned to before she, too, fell asleep.

Yukihito opened the door to Ren's office a few hours later to find the two of them out cold in their respective places. He took a second to smile at the sight before tiptoeing over to his superior and quietly waking him for their scheduled meeting across town. Once he opened his eyes, Yukihito silenced him with a hand before pointing to Kyoko's sleeping form at his desk.

After stretching slowly once he stood, Ren walked over to the rack near his desk and reached for his coat. In one fluid motion, the fabric swirled around behind him and, by the time it had settled about his shoulders, his previous attire had changed from old jeans and a shirt to a dark, tailored suit. He silently motioned to his Assistant Head for the two of them to depart. Once they reached the door, he paused to turn around. With a flick of his wrist, the blanket he left on the sofa swooped into the air before it came to rest on Kyoko's shoulders with a flutter. Satisfied, he continued on his way out of the office, leaving the door to close quietly behind the two of them.

* * *

 **SERVING UP A LITTLE FLUFF WITH YOUR HUMOR. I can't wait to work on more interactions with everyone in this story. The dialogue is so fun to write. Anyway, I hope your enjoying my Halloween gifts to you all!**

 **AUTHOR OUT (of eye of newt)!**


	5. Nothing Ventured, Nothing Retained

**CHAPTER 5: NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING RETAINED**

"Kanae," Kyoko called from the shop's storage room. "Did you move the reference books from where they used to be back here?"

"Yea, after a certain employee of mine used one of them to make a coven leader to fall in love with her, I figured they should probably be more securely stored."

Kyoko rolled her eyes and huffed with a low growl.

"Well, that same employee needs to do some more research so she can undo what she did. Now, unlock the safe."

Kanae grumbled, but eventually did as her friend asked and brought her the book that had started this entire unfortunate situation. The young woman took it with eager hands and immediately opened it on the counter top she stood near. She flipped quickly through the pages, scanning each one before moving on to the next. As she progressed through over half of the book, her speed slowed and she began to click her tongue in frustration as she turned each page.

"Not finding what you're looking for?" Kanae guessed.

"No," she sighed. "For all of the other ridiculous spells this man created in his lifetime, he never made one that makes someone hate you."

"Are you trying to make your besotted coven leader hate you instead?"

Refusing to let the teasing get to her, she explained to her friend what she and Ren had learned about the hypothetical method for reversing the spell two days prior. Hypothetical only because no one had figured out the reversal for that particular spell yet.

"So we just have to cast its opposing counterpart," Kyoko finished, still reading through the book. "So I figured it had to be a hatred spell, but this is the second day I've been searching and I've got nothing to show for it."

Kanae just gave her a flat look before she shook her head.

"Isn't that little _too_ on the nose, Kyoko?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if it's as you say and no one has been able to find a reversal for that spell, wouldn't that have been one of the first options to be ruled out?"

Kyoko froze, the page she had been reading crumpled beneath her grip. Her lips were clamped tightly together, yet a small whine escaped them nonetheless. Kanae chuckled.

"You hadn't considered that, had you?"

"No," Kyoko's shoulders sagged in defeat.

"I don't think that spell would have been the right one anyway."

"Why not?"

"The opposite of love isn't hate," Kanae stated plainly. "They're both too similar and too charged with a myriad of emotions to be opposites. If anything, they're almost cousins."

"So, what do you think the opposite of true love is?"

Kanae shrugged.

"I can't say for sure. Maybe something along the lines of apathy?"

"Apathy?" Kyoko's nose wrinkled at the very idea. "How is that the opposite?"

"Well, think about it. When you're in love, you're consumed with how you feel about the other person. Everything they do, everything they say and everything they think is on your mind because it matters to you. What would be the opposite of that?"

"Complete disinterest," Kyoko breathed, her eyes wide with comprehension.

She slammed the book shut with an audible clap and retreated to the back room. When she returned, her purse was in her hand and she picked up the book on her way towards the shop's entrance.

"And where do you think you're going while you're still on the clock, young lady?" Kanae's words halted her stride.

"To do some more research where there's a bigger collection of books like this," she held up the one she had in her hand. "There's only a few days left to my allotted week, so this still takes priority, right?"

Kanae appraised her with a scrutinizing look. Her lips twisted into a mocking smile.

"Sure, tell your boyfriend I said hello."

Kyoko breathed out a noisy, exasperated sigh and walked out the door.

* * *

The coven library was buzzing with activity when she arrived and she scurried to her preferred corner of solitude as quickly as possible. Once she had set her things down in her little sanctuary, she went to peruse the shelves in search of any books that might help her. It wasn't long before she had amassed enough of a collection to build a low wall of books on the small table she'd claimed for herself.

She spent several hours inside her book fortress, moving from one to the next once she had extracted all she could from the pages. So far, she couldn't find anything that would be applicable to Kanae's theory. Perhaps indifference was a bit too bland for Lory Takarada. He certainly did have a flair for the dramatic, after all, so she wouldn't really be surprised.

But, if that was the case, then either the theory was incorrect or the presumed solution was.

Her head bent forward until it was resting on the opened book before her and she groaned. Reading small text under bright overhead light was fast becoming an effective cocktail for fatigue. She was about to call it quits when a human-shaped shadow appeared across her book.

"Sorry I couldn't make it down here sooner," a voice accompanied the shadow. "I was busy, but I got your message and I'm here now to help."

She craned her neck to look up at the male who stood near her, squinting at the lights that turned the majority of his face and body into little more than a silhouette. Recognizing him instantly, she cupped a hand above her eyes to ward off the glare before shaking her head.

"I didn't send you any message."

"But one of the front desk attendants said that they were told to let me know you were here…" his confusion soon turned to understanding. "Of course."

"Of course what?"

"It seems my meddlesome Assistant Head has interfered once again."

Ren quickly took a seat beside her and she was grateful for him giving her neck a rest. The gentle brush of his shoulder against hers, however, had her wishing a different sort of reprieve. Dismissing the involuntary shudder that ran down her spine, she turned her focus to their conversation.

"Is he trying to set us up or something?"

"I think that was his initial idea, but his new hypothesis is that the effects of the spell would be lessened the more time I spend around you," he sighed. "I was deliberately avoiding telling him he was correct, but it seems he's figured it out anyway."

"Clever man," Kyoko mused. "Perhaps he should be the one helping me instead. At least he won't be mooning over me the entire time."

"I'm not mooning," he protested.

Kyoko raised an eyebrow at him.

"Between the love-struck smiles, the wistful sighs and your continuous need for some sort of bodily contact,, you most certainly are."

"I mostly try to keep it to myself, but sometimes I can't control it," he pouted, but noticeably shifted away from her.

"I appreciate the effort," she said flatly.

Ren sighed again, accepting his loss in this particular verbal bout.

"Anyway, I see you've built a rampart out of books over here," he pointed to her construction efforts. "What are you looking for this time?"

Kyoko's recounting of the conversation between herself and Kanae felt more lengthy than it actually was. There was something peculiarly exhausting about telling the man who's in love with her about her machinations to invalidate his feelings. And, if she didn't know any better, she swore it got more difficult each time she had to share details about her research with him. The fact that he would attentively listen to her every word as if she were giving a scintillating lecture made it worse.

"Unfortunately, I can't find any spells that would affect any sort of apathy or indifference or any other synonym I can think of," she let out a rueful laugh. "I suppose, if one was easily available, I probably would've gone for that instead of getting myself into this mess in the first place."

"So, why did you do it? The spell, I mean," Ren asked carefully, recognizing her sensitivity to the subject.

Kyoko let out a long breath and ran a hand through her hair, stopping to scrub her nails against the nape of her neck. Sitting back in her chair and staring at nothing in particular, a grim smile formed on her lips.

"Oh, it was your typical story of girl meets boy. Girl grows up with boy and, later, proceeds to date said boy. Girl subsequently finds boy in a compromising position with another girl on top of a buffet table."

"Yikes," Ren winced.

"Yea."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she waved a hand at him. "Unless you were the buffet table, you weren't involved in any of this."

He laughed; his eyes glittered with mirth and she couldn't help but smile. His mood was infectious like that and she often found her lips curling in spite of herself. She really wish he'd stop doing that.

"Well, since I'm involved now, you have my sympathies. I guess I can understand your motives a little better," he leaned forward and folded his arms on the table. "This is almost the opposite of what you wanted when you cast that spell."

"Exactly," she agreed. "All I wanted to was to forget about him. Forget about love entirely."

Ren's face fell for a moment and, though he tried to cover it up, she noticed. She leaned towards him with a curious expression.

"You just had a thought," she guessed. "What was it?"

He hesitated and looked away briefly before his eyes returned to hers.

"You said you wanted to forget," his voice was suddenly very quiet.

"Yes, and?"

"You agreed with me when I said that the spell was the opposite of what you wanted."

"... Is there a point to this?"

"You said you wanted to _forget_ and that you got the _opposite_ of what you wanted," he repeated himself, stressing the words he found important.

"...oh. Ohhhhh!" Kyoko frantically pointed at him. "We need to see if Lory created a forgetting spell!"

"I might know which one it is," he all but mumbled the words under his breath. "The book is probably still in my office."

She heard him anyway.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's locate it!"

Kyoko jumped up from her seat and began packing her notes back into her bag and stacking her collection of books to return them to the circulation desk. When she noticed Ren lagging behind her at a much slower pace, she sent him a questioning glance.

"You'll understand when you see it," was all he offered by way of an explanation.

The book was, in fact, still on his desk when they made it to his office. After being pushed out of the way to make room for various paperwork and other things that took precedence, it sat all but discarded at the far corner. Ren picked it up and sat in his chair; a subtle hand wave bringing a second chair to park next to his. He invited her to sit beside him and opened the book, flipping past several pages until he stopped at his intended destination. Gesturing to the page on the left, he handed the book over to her to inspect.

"Finical Remembrance Extirpation," she translated the runes at the top of the page out loud.

She blinked once. Twice. Then looked at Ren with a frown.

"This is a memory wipe spell."

"Not just any memory wipe. It allows the caster to remove all memories—written, spoken or otherwise—associated with a certain person from both themselves and the person on which it's focused," he explained, pointing out the detailed description that followed the title. "Essentially leaving both parties with zero recollection of each other. Very helpful for botched first impressions, I'd imagine."

She was half-listening to his explanation while studying the spell on the page. Something stood out to her and she couldn't tear her focus away from it. It was something she had seen before, but dismissed it as an anomaly. Pulling out the book she brought with her, she opened it to the page she bookmarked that displayed the spell she originally cast.

Looking between the two, she confirmed her suspicions. Kyoko leaned towards the man beside her and pointed between the two spells.

"Do these two runes look like they were written the exact same way?"

"Well, they should if they were written by the same person," he wasn't trying to be deliberately obtuse, but he did not follow her train of thought.

"No, I mean, look closely," she pointed to a particular point on the character. "There's an extra tiny stroke at the end here on both of them that doesn't seem to be made by lifting a pen to transition to another character."

"Could it be an idiosyncratic thing?"

"This rune translates to nothing more than an indefinite article," her brow furrowed in confusion as she pondered aloud. "Furthermore, it's written several more times throughout both of these spells and only once is it written in this particular style."

Both of them stared at the two spells in silence, eyes scanning between the two runes Kyoko identified. In the same moment, they looked up at each other, the first tendrils of an idea beginning to take hold in both of their minds. They knew that the other was thinking the exact same thing as they were. Kyoko immediately began to dig through her bag for her notebook while Ren called Yukihito to tell him that he would be unavailable for the remainder of the day.

They didn't come up for air for several hours after that.

"This is incredible," Ren breathed as he stared, stupefied at the myriad of books and papers on the desk before them. "Who would've guessed these spells had a hidden visual clue like that?"

"I gotta hand it to the old man," Kyoko leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms over her head until her joints popped. "He may be completely insane, but he's nothing short of brilliant."

Their eyes were exhausted, but they had proven their theory. While they were only able to confirm a handful of the spells, it was enough to determine that they were correct. Every spell created by Lory Takarada had an innocuous, but oddly drawn, character that tied it to its counterpart. Locating them was, for lack of a better term, a veritable witch hunt and both of them had to look away from the pages for several minutes simply because their eyes could no longer focus.

"This is big," she said, her voice reverent with awe. "I mean, huge. Forget graduating early, I could almost be out of LME tomorrow and have the choice of joining any of the top covens with this."

"Too bad neither of us will remember it when this is all over."

Kyoko stopped rubbing at the crick in her neck and her eyes opened wide. Right. That was still a thing they intended to do. What's more, they already had the means by which to, quite literally, revert everything back the way it was.

"Having second thoughts?" Ren asked, noticing her change in demeanor.

"You and I made an agreement," she said stiffly, sitting up straight in her chair. "Regardless of what we've uncovered, I still intend to honor that. I'm not going to keep us in a situation that causes both of us such discomfort for my own selfishness."

He remained silent, causing her to turn and look at him. The expression on his face told her he was just as conflicted about this as she was. Well, that was a bit of a relief. At least she wasn't the only one having an internal crisis. She figured he had even more of a reason to continue with their arrangement than she did. But, he had been acting strangely from the time she even mentioned a spell that would help them forget each other and she still could not understand why.

"Do you really want to prolong the anguish of pining for me for the sake of a—albeit groundbreaking—discovery?"

"Are you asking me value my sanity higher than a significant contribution to the magic community?" he countered her question with one of his own.

"Uh, yes!" she cried in disbelief, emoting wildly with her hands. "There are other scholars out there who can connect the dots just as well as we have. We just happened to get there faster out of necessity. This isn't worth sacrificing your well-being. You have a coven to lead, for goodness sake!"

"Aw, Kyoko, you _do_ care!"

He leaned over the side of his chair, letting his head rest on her shoulder, a teasing grin on his face.

"It's called common human decency," she wriggled under his weight, helpless to banish the color that bloomed on her cheeks. "Now get off of me!"

He righted himself, sitting properly in his chair once more. A sneaky smile crept across his face and he shot her a sidelong glance. She wondered what that look meant, but didn't have to for long.

"Of course, we are forgetting the obvious option."

"Which is?" she sighed.

"We go along with the spell."

Kyoko's face drained of all color, "Oh no—"

"I mean, spending more time around you does lessen the effects of it," he began to ramble, heedless of her protests.

"This is not what we agree—"

"And it doesn't seem like you hate me."

"That doesn't mean anyth—"

"Why not give it a try?"

"This is the spell talking, Ren," she held up a hand, her eyes begging him to reconsider. "Not you."

"Is it? Not once today have I had to filter my words around you," that bit of information stunned her into silence, so he continued. "Kyoko, we've spent so much time together focusing on how to fix the problem, we never stopped to wonder why we were chosen for each other in the first place."

"Yea, because I _thought_ that's what we both wanted."

"And it was, at least, at that time," he admitted with a nod. "But, now, I've had time to reconsider."

"Clearly a fatal error on your part," Kyoko muttered under her breath. "What changed?"

"You grew on me," he shrugged with an impish smile.

"But, you know I'm not ready for any sort of—" her hand gestured between the two of them, "this. Not to mention that none of this is even real. This is only happening because of the spell."

"Yes, but _why_?!" he pressed, his eyes searching hers. "Do you really think I was randomly chosen as your match? You've learned, just as I have, that magic is never indiscriminate. If it has no predetermined aim or direction, a spell will always fail."

Kyoko could not deny that he had a valid point. She looked away, too overwhelmed by her own conflicting feelings to argue.

"I'm well aware this is not something you're interested in right now," Ren was quick to defend in a much softer tone. "And I'm not saying we have to be lovers starting tomorrow. Hell, we could find out that it won't work out between us and go back to the original plan."

"Then what are you suggesting?" she asked finally.

"There's only two days left, so we use the remainder of our allotted week spending time together and getting to know each other."

Oh, if his Assistant Head could only hear him now. The shit-eating grin that man would have on his face would, most likely, haunt him for the rest of his days. He was thankful, in that moment, that he was not present for this conversation.

"That sounds an awful lot like dating," she balked at the idea.

"If that is how you wish to describe it," he waved off her concern with a hand. "As for me, I'd rather we be fully informed of the decision we're making before we go about obliterating our memories."

"And at the end of the week?"

"We make a choice; to stay as we are or to forget everything," he looked as if it physically pained him to finish that sentence.

The concept sounded so ridiculously simple, Kyoko couldn't help but be suspicious. However, the more she thought about it, the more she realized the advantages. They could easily sate their curiosity about each other and, when they decided it wasn't worth pursuing—there was no 'if' as far as Kyoko was concerned—they wipe the slate clean and start back at zero. She couldn't help but think how much her dating life would have benefited from this sort of convenience, but wondered if it wouldn't cause her to keep choosing the wrong type of person over and over again.

Tilting her head alternately from side to side, she mulled it over a few seconds more despite this being the least risky uncertainty she'd ever faced.

"Fine," she spoke decisively and reached out to shake his hand, "I accept."

Ren took her proffered hand and shook it once, before turning it over to press his lips gently against the back of it. With a squeal, she yanked her hand back and held it against her chest, her cheeks red once more.

"W-what do you think you're doing?!"

"It's called flirting, Kyoko. I'm sure you've heard of it," he drawled, looking awfully smug. "Now, where would you like to go for dinner?"

* * *

 **SQUEEZING IT IN JUST BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR; just like a good procrastinator. Nothing like the end of the year coming around to give you a burst of productivity. Well, we'll see how long it lasts. After all, I'm still running away from Anomalous like a disobedient three-year-old screaming "NO, I don't wanna!"**

 **Best wishes for the New Year from my inner toddler.**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	6. Familiarity Breeds Consent

**CHAPTER 6: FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONSENT**

"I can't believe this is what we ended up doing."

"I left it up to you to decide where we ate and you couldn't pick anything."

"That's because I normally eat at home!"

"Exactly. So, here we are."

Kyoko's mind was still reeling from trying to figure out exactly how Ren managed to invite himself into her apartment. She must have been in a daze following their conversation in his office as she completely missed whatever she had said that led to a trip to the grocery store for ingredients. Yet, there he was, washing rice at her kitchen sink while his coat and scarf hung on the hooks by her front door. According to him, rice was the only thing he could consistently make well. The idea that the head of a prestigious coven—who could perfectly follow complicated spells to the letter—was wholly incapable of cooking was humorous to her.

So, she laughed. Both at him and the peculiar situation in which they found themselves.

Still, he was quite helpful despite his lack of cooking skills. Ren was quick to grab whatever she needed, asking only where it was stored before handing it off to her. All the dishes she used during her preparation were already washed and drying in the rack beside her sink. For the briefest moment, she considered that it would be nice to have this kind of help all the time before she shook her head to banish the thought from going any further than that.

Because her kitchen was quite small, it was almost cramped when two people attempted to use it simultaneously. When Kyoko went to step backwards to reach for something on the spice rack behind her, she tripped over the toe of Ren's shoe and nearly fell over. However, he quickly steadied her with an arm about her shoulders. They faced each other like that for only a second or two, her leaning backwards against his arm and him bent over her.

She didn't miss the way his eyes briefly focused on her lips before he pulled her back into an upright position and continued on his way back to the sink.

Due to her lack of an actual dining table, they ate on the stools she had pulled up to the outer edge of the counter that faced her equally small living room. Her dishes were simple and plain white and her silverware mostly matched with the exception of the few odd pieces that had to be replaced after they were ruined by a few unsuccessful spells. She was probably more self-conscious about it than her guest. It seemed as if Ren neither noticed nor cared.

He opted for a plate while she chose a bowl. His reasoning was that he needed more real estate to properly showcase the rice because he 'worked so hard on it.' Thus, they sat with their respective dishes and began to eat. When Ren offered magnanimous praise for her culinary creation, he finished with an expectant look. Rolling her eyes, Kyoko's lips tilted up on one side and she thanked him for his contribution to the dinner, albeit in a much less enthusiastic tone than his.

"So, where would we have gone if you were the one to choose our dinner destination?" she asked once she was a third of the way through her meal.

"Probably the diner around the corner from the coven," Ren shrugged. "As you can tell by my stellar rice-cooking skills, I eat out quite often. That place is my favorite spot on my way home. They make the best fries."

"No five-course meal in some fancy restaurant, then?"

"I figured that would be a bit intimidating," he shook his head. "If the point of this was to get to know each other, I'd rather a more comfortable atmosphere."

"Well, it doesn't get much more comfortable than this," she gestured around her.

"Not to mention, you have the advantage of being in your home territory," he pointed his fork at her. "You are free to kick me out whenever you see fit."

"Oh," she breathed before slowly putting another forkful of food in her mouth.

She rather liked the sound of that.

"So, are there any topics that we should strictly avoid during the remainder of our acquaintance?"

Kyoko pondered his question for a moment, chewing her food slowly before she answered.

"I'd prefer to not talk about my family if we can help it," her nose wrinkled a bit at the thought. "There's a lot of drama and history there that I'm not fond of dredging up."

"It would seem that we are alike in that respect," he nodded both in understanding and agreement. "Anything else?"

"I don't think so. As long as you're considerate and it's within reason, you're free to ask."

"Oh, good," Ren sounded relieved. "Because I've been dying to ask you about that."

He pointed to the coffee table in the living room behind them. Her large wooden bowl still sat on it, surrounded by partially spent black candles, branches, leaves and sage bundles. Those were all fairly normal things one would find in any witch or warlock home. The small collection of nearly a dozen handmade effigies sitting just beside all of that was not.

"We were studying historic magical items from different cultures," was her generic answer. "It was a requirement for one of my courses."

"Unless the coursework has changed significantly in the last four years," he scoffed. "I doubt you were required to make that many."

"I… may have gotten a little carried away," she mumbled, shooting him a sideways glance when he laughed. "What? They were kind of fun to make."

"Well, you definitely have a talent for them. They're actually very well made."

"I—" she fumbled for a witty retort and gave up. "Thank you."

They continued to eat in companionable silence for a bit longer. She noticed he ate much slower than she did, taking smaller amounts of food at a time. Still, he steadily worked his way through what he'd piled on his plate. There was an odd feeling of relief at the realization that he was clearly enjoying what she'd prepared. She didn't need to impress him with her cooking. So, why did the fact that he seemed to like it make her so happy?

The fact that he promptly washed their dishes after they were finished eating made her even happier.

"So, you practice your spells at the coffee table?" he asked once they'd each settled into a chair in her living room.

Kyoko nodded, "It's the room with the tallest ceiling and the balcony door provides decent ventilation."

A wry grin formed on his face and a short chuckle escaped his lips before he could stop it.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No, I heard you laugh," she pressed. "What is it?"

"When you give people a tour of your apartment, you can say that this is literally 'where the magic happens'," he only just managed to hold back a giggle.

Kyoko's face fell, "You're unbelievable."

"What can I say? I have enjoyed a delicious meal in the company of a," he paused for effect, " _bewitching_ woman. I can't help myself."

"I thought you said you could control yourself," she raised an eyebrow at him with a frown.

"I was being completely honest," his neutral expression betrayed no hint of ridicule. "I happen to think you're quite beautiful, Kyoko."

"Nope," she began to protest.

"Stunning," he insisted.

"No!"

"Gorgeous."

"Please stop."

"Winsome?"

"Did you get that one from _Ye Olde Thesaurus_?" she teased him. "I don't think anyone uses 'winsome' anymore."

"Oh well, you winsome; you lose some," Ren grinned.

Kyoko groaned, slapping one hand against her face while the other pointed towards her door.

"One more awful joke and I'm kicking you out."

His lips pulled themselves into a pitiful pout and he stared at her with wide, beseeching eyes. She shook her head and sighed at this, completely powerless against such an innocent expression.

"I'll be good, I promise."

She eyed him warily, "Does Yukihito know you're like this?"

"I wouldn't be able to work so closely with him if he didn't."

"That poor man."

"He's really not. I pay him exceedingly well," he gave her a sheepish grin when he saw her warning glare. "Besides, you two are part of a very small group of people who know the real person behind the lofty job title and the need to keep up appearances."

"And I only barely know you, really."

"Likewise," Ren agreed. "I think the only things I know about you are that you are an exceptional student and worker who's trying to get over recent heartbreak with aid of magic and excessive amounts of sass."

"My sass is not excessive," Kyoko defended with a pout.

He raised an eyebrow at her, "You stormed into my office with a complete disregard for anyone, jabbed a finger in my face and demanded that I help you."

"Okay, maybe that was going a bit too far," she acquiesced.

"Honestly, I thought it was kind of hot," he admitted candidly.

Kyoko's face colored in an instant. Inwardly, she cursed herself as she scrambled to regain her train of thought that Ren so effortlessly derailed.

"W-well, all I know about you is that you try to fool your coven members into thinking you're some sort of cold, untouchable leader when you're a giant goofball behind closed doors."

"That's probably all you need to know, really. I'm not that complicated," he agreed with her assessment. "Okay, maybe I'm a little more complicated than that, but that would require more than just a few days of spending time with me to learn."

"How so?" She was curious.

Ren wagged a finger at her with a smile, "We agreed not to talk about our families."

"Ah, right."

He grew quiet after that and looked pensive. Kyoko watched him stare at nothing in particular, clearly deep in thought. Patiently she waited, not risking breaking the silence and disturb him. Eventually, he voiced the question he'd obviously been mulling around in his mind.

"Why were you so adamant about stopping me from telling you that you're attractive?"

"We agreed not to talk about our families," she parroted his words back at him, a victorious smile on her lips.

"The insecurity runs that deep, huh?"

She said nothing in return and only shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"Got it. I'll leave it alone," he assured her. "Just know that I meant everything I said."

Kyoko snorted, "It's really hard to believe that when you're still under the influence of the spell."

His shoulders lifted and he tilted his head to one side in nonchalance, but said nothing further.

To prevent themselves from pursuing any further unwanted paths of conversation, Ren pointed to the deck of tarot cards sitting on the corner of her coffee table and asked if she knew how to play any of the old trick-taking games with them. When she shook her head, he offered to teach her if she was keen on learning. At first, she hesitated, looking nervously at her deck. Guessing at the cause of her unease, he summoned a deck from the same nameless oblivion the pillow and blanket in his office originated.

Once the threat of someone else touching her tarot deck was eliminated, she was much more receptive to the suggestion. Carefully moving aside her paraphernalia, they cleared a space for them to play. Ren dealt the cards to both of them face up and the first teaching game began.

"You can learn a lot about a person by playing a game with them," Ren said once they were well into their fifth game.

"Can you really?" Kyoko asked, drawing another card.

"Sure, the way someone plays is a decent representation of their personality," he explained. "Such as whether they're an aggressive or defensive player. How closely they focus on the game shows their attention to detail and if they prefer probability over luck."

"Huh, I never thought about it like that," she looked between the cards on the table and the two remaining in her hand before selecting the one she would play. "Do you know what this says about me?"

"What?" he watched her pull the cards over to her side of the table after successfully taking the trick.

Dropping her last card on the table with a flourish, she smirked.

"I'm the winner."

Ren laughed as he began to pick up the cards on his side to count out his total score.

"And you didn't believe me when I said you were _win_ some."

Kyoko halted her own counting and narrowed her eyes at him, "Don't you even start with that again."

He continued to laugh and finished counting, shaking his head all the while. After comparing scores, it was confirmed that Kyoko was, indeed, the winner. Ren complimented her on picking up the game so quickly. Gathering the cards together, he sent the deck away with the tap of his finger and a muted pop.

"I think I should take my leave before I wear out my welcome."

"Making a tactical retreat before you lose another round?" Kyoko challenged him.

"Oh, someone's cocky now that they've won a few games," he mocked her playfully. "I think we'll have to schedule a rematch very soon."

"I'll be looking forward to it," she agreed, defiantly folding her arms.

He stood and made his way to the door. After shrugging on his coat, he turned to her with a warm smile.

"Thank you for dinner and for letting me intrude on your home," his voice was soft and earnest.

"No problem," she dismissed his thanks with a wave of her hand. "This was actually a pretty enjoyable evening, despite your awful sense of humor."

"I'm not apologizing for that."

"I didn't expect you to."

It was a battle for them to continue to look each other in the eyes and not laugh. Unfortunately—or not, depending on how one views it—they both lost. Once the last few chuckles died down, Ren finished buttoning his coat and reached for the doorknob. With one final nod and a smile, he bid her goodnight. Kyoko reciprocated with a tiny wave as she watched him leave, letting out a pleased sigh once the door closed behind him.

It wasn't until she had showered and dressed for bed that she noticed it. Returning to the kitchen, she went to shut off the light when her eyes darted over to the door to make sure it was locked. There, beside the door, Ren's scarf was still hanging on its hook, long forgotten by its owner. Kyoko walked slowly towards it, careful as if it might fly off the hook and attack her. Once she was near, she reached out a hand to touch it, her fingers brushing lightly against the soft cashmere. She pulled it off the hook and folded it over, intent on placing it with her purse and keys so she could return it the next day.

Her hands, however, had other plans.

Suddenly, the scarf was crushed against her nose and the loose fibers tickled her skin. A brief inhale revealed what she already assumed to be true; it smelled just like him. Lost in the moment, she closed her eyes and breathed in again, only more deeply this time. The scent was an odd mixture of cologne, logs burning in a fireplace and… french fries? She giggled a little into the scarf and the tickling fibers caused her to sneeze. It was enough to shake her from whatever trance she was in and she looked down in horror at her hands still clutching the scarf to her face.

Kyoko then flailed her arms, let out a ghastly shriek and promptly threw the offending item across the room.

* * *

 **I DID IT ALL FOR THE PUNS: Spell it Out is fueled by pun-power, a hilarious and renewable resource. This chapter put out at least 50 megaGroans of energy to bring a little sunshine and laughter into your life.**

 **Living dangerously as I only just wrote this today and gave it the quickest once-over revision. Reviews, as always, are lovely and much appreciated.**

(EDIT NOTE: thank you to anonymous Guest for your help with fixing a small inconsistency. It's nice to know that when I live dangerously, someone else is there to be my safety net. You're the best!)

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	7. All Odd Things Must Come to an End

**CHAPTER 7: ALL ODD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END**

To say Ren was sick with apprehension was an understatement. If anything, a more accurate description would be that his unease had rendered him completely unable to focus on anything save breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. Even that last one was becoming increasingly difficult as the day wore on.

Today was their _last_ day.

He had half a mind to ask for an extension to their deadline when their schedules conflicted so much the day before that they only managed to see each other for little more than an hour. The majority of that time was spent slumped against each other on the sofa in his office, griping about their respective days. Though it was only an hour, the comfort of being in her presence was enough to banish the tedium and gloom from the rest of his day to whatever dark corner from which it originated.

Kyoko seemed to enjoy their time as well, her smile brightened considerably by the time they parted ways. Still he couldn't help but notice the way she continued to stay guarded around him. He wondered if she was too preoccupied with listening for the sound of the other shoe dropping to hear how loudly his entire being cried out for her.

Nevertheless, at the end of this day, they would ultimately decide their fate. He was understandably nervous.

They met outside an auditorium on the LME campus later that afternoon as Kyoko's classes kept her away from him for most of the day. Normally, his visits to his alma mater were sparing at best, but he had something special in mind for them to do.

A disorganized line of people were milling about near the entrance, separated here and there into groups and gaggles. A table was set up near the door where two students flanked a large glazed pottery bowl emitting tiny wisps of smoke. As each person passed the table, they dropped something into the bowl that, upon landing, sent bright green sparks shooting upwards into the air. Then, with a nod from the students, they would proceed inside the large double doors.

"What is this?" Kyoko must have felt like she had to whisper.

"It's an alumni lecture," he kept his voice equally low.

"Yea, but what's with the security check at the door? They didn't tell the rest of the students about this."

"Once a year, LME hosts a special guest speaker who is usually a very prominent figure in the magic community," he explained. "The lecture is offered only to a select few alumni and is by invitation only."

"And you're letting me tag along?"

He waved her concern away with one hand, "The invitation states that we can bring a guest so long as they are in good standing with their school or coven."

When they approached the table, Ren pulled what looked like two purple magnolia petals from the inner pocket of his jacket and dropped them into the bowl. They twirled from side to side before landing in the heap of incense that smouldered inside. Immediately, a shower of green appeared and he smiled at both of the attendants who stood at the table before nodding his head towards where Kyoko stood beside him.

"She's my plus-one."

One of the students seemed to recognize her and their eyes widened in surprise before offering her a tiny wave that she returned just as timidly.

"Surely there were other people you could have taken with you," she said as they filed in behind the other guests in search of a seat. "Why me?"

"Because this particular guest is… somewhat relevant to our interests."

He said nothing beyond that cryptic reply as they chose two seats off to the side and out of the glare of the bright stage lights. Once the rest of the guests had entered and were seated, a man walked onto the stage with an air of overstated importance completely at odds with the boring, gray suit and canary yellow tie he wore. After introducing himself as the president of the school, he went on to give a brief description of their guest speaker that night before stating their name and inviting them to join him on stage. Kyoko gasped quietly beside him when she realized who the person was.

The great-great granddaughter of the man who had, indirectly, turned their lives on their respective ears.

Maria Takarada.

She was a petite, middle-aged woman in stature only, her long, voluminous curly hair adding a scant few inches to her height. Everything else about her was poised, elegant and grandiose. Maria Takarada was the only person Ren had met that could wear crushed velvet, lace and a handful of sparkling rings like most people wore tennis shoes.

As a renowned researcher of energy fields, she spoke at length about the latest data from her study of human auras. Images, charts and graphs of all sizes and colors floated, enlarged above her head and changed with a flutter of her fingers. Her most recent discovery was that auras had a detectable frequency. Additionally, that frequency changes when in the presence of others. People who shared very close relationships displayed auras that resonated. Conversely, complete strangers and people who did not get along with each other had dissonant auras that conflicted.

Ren glanced to his left to see Kyoko paying rapt attention. He let his eyes trace the profile of her face over and over again in an attempt to commit the shape to memory. The way her nose would crinkle every so often. The way her lips stayed slightly parted. He'd have that image permanently burned into his retinas if he could and the threat of it all being taken away from him without leaving behind so much as a vague memory scared him more than he would admit.

Was there anything he could say or do to convince her to let them stay this way forever?

He doubted it, but hoped all the same.

Following the lecture, there was a lavish reception full of bubbly drinks in a variety of vibrant colors and servers carrying silver trays loaded with tiny samples of food that had elaborate names. Kyoko seemed to be of the mind that the other guests deserved to enjoy the offerings more than she did, so Ren would casually swipe something from a passing tray he noticed she had her eye on. When he turned to greet someone with the usual pleasantries, he'd quickly place the item in her hand so he could avoid the look she was, no doubt, giving him.

The guest of honor made her way through the room, stopping to chat quickly with everyone who caught her eye before she eventually approached him and Kyoko. Her smile wide, she walked right up to him before throwing her arms about his torso and wrapping him in an enthusiastic hug. Ren leaned forward to reciprocate while exchanging a look with his equally confused companion.

"Oh, Ren. Look at you," she leaned back to scan him from head to toe. "All grown up and running one of the top covens in the city. It's been, what, six years? Seven?"

"It's a pleasure to see you again as well, Ms. Takarada."

"Please," she scoffed. "You're no longer a student. You can just call me Maria."

"Of course," he nodded.

"And who is this fetching young lady you've brought with you?" she smiled brightly at Kyoko. "Last I heard, you had taken a monk's oath of celibacy."

"The rumor mill must be running low on material if that's the best they can come up with," he turned to introduce Kyoko. "This is Kyoko Mogami, a third-year here and one of the top students in her class."

"So, you're scouting the talent before they even graduate? Or is this," she gestured between him and Kyoko, "something else?"

"Well, _he_ certainly is something else all on his own. I don't think he needs my help with that," Kyoko interjected before an awkward silence could pervade, thrusting a hand forward in greeting. "It's an honor to meet you, Ms. Takarada. I thoroughly enjoyed your lecture."

Maria laughed, clasping both hands around Kyoko's, the gemstones in her rings catching the overhead light and glinting as she moved.

"Oh, this one's got sass! I like her already. Thank you so much, my dear. It's actually quite nice to see some new, young faces around here instead of the usual old and stuffy ones. Their auras are just as bland and dusty as they are."

Kyoko looked both impressed and awestruck.

"You mean you can actually detect auras without the aid of a seeing stone?"

"It runs in the family, I'm afraid. So I couldn't escape it if I tried," she let out a merry giggle. "Ren has always had a beautiful one, so it's nice to see someone else who's aura compliments his so well. If only I had the two of you as research subjects during my study. I'll bet you have a lovely resonance."

Kyoko was struck dumb by her comment, her face resembling a ripened apple. Thus, Ren answered in her stead.

"Maria, I don't think you can press gang people into being your lab rats with flattery."

Maria's laugh was as bright and beautiful as her jewelry.

"Oh, well, it was worth a shot. Anyway, it looks like that self-important president wants me to go make nice with some people so, I'm afraid I must go."

"Thank you for taking the time to say hello."

"Oh, nonsense, Ren. It was wonderful seeing one of my old students," she dismissed his words before leaning in and lowering her voice. "And don't let go of that one next to you. She's doing you a world of good. Your aura was never this bright in the past!"

Ren tried not to choke on the sad reality of their situation.

"I'll do my best."

They silently watched her walk away after giving each of them a quick hug. Once he had cleared the echo of Maria's words from his head, Ren turned to Kyoko with the best smile he could muster.

"We probably shouldn't have an important conversation on mostly empty stomachs. Would you like to get some dinner?"

She gave him a look that, despite its skepticism, warmed his insides.

"Procrastinating, huh? You're in luck seeing as I'm absolutely famished so, yes."

He had mentioned the diner near his coven two nights before. The food was good, the service was fast and it was one of the few places in the city he felt the most comfortable outside of his apartment. There was a sort of serenity about the constant murmur of activity from the kitchen interlaced with the sound of silverware clinking against dishes. Most of the people who frequented there were interested only in having a meal and leaving, thus avoiding the unpleasant awkwardness of having to make small talk with people you recognized, unless you actually wanted to talk to them.

In short, it was heaven for an introvert. And heaven could only be made more heavenly when the object of one's affections was also present.

Ren watched Kyoko eagerly tuck in to her meal and fought desperately against staring at her lips the entire time. He failed more times than he succeeded because the way they wrapped around each mouthful of food she pushed past them had him thoroughly distracted. She noticed it, too, and would stop chewing to raise a questioning eyebrow at him. With a shake of his head, he would look away only to look back and start the process all over again.

"So, when were you going to tell me that Maria Takarada was your teacher?" she eventually asked.

He swallowed his mouthful of fries before answering.

"I honestly didn't think she'd remember me. She was a temporary replacement after one professor got sick before the start of the second quarter of my first year," he explained. "Someone apparently called in a favor and asked her to teach Intro to Curses."

Kyoko made a face, "That seems like overkill."

"Oh, it was," he nodded. "She was extremely adept at curses when she was younger, before she started to devote her time to aura research. If anything, she should've been teaching graduate level classes."

"Still, you didn't think to call her up to help us out?"

"I never stayed in contact with her after that one class and she left LME as soon as the quarter ended. She was just another teacher to me at the time. It would have been a bit awkward to just call her out of the blue."

"Considering how happy she was to see you, she probably wouldn't have minded."

True, but we did just fine on our own anyway, didn't we?" he grinned.

He chuckled at Kyoko's grumbled, begrudging agreement.

Alas, dinner was over all too quickly and they returned to his office at the coven, at his suggestion, since it was closer than his apartment and a less intimidating venue for his guest. Upon arriving, he noticed Kyoko refused to sit anywhere in the room at first, looking around as if she were trying to gather her thoughts. Or her courage.

"Okay, out with it already," he prompted, her nervousness finally getting the better of him.

"I still want to reverse the spell," her eyes were tightly shut as she spoke.

"Well, I did promise to honor your decision, whatever it was," he slowly breathed out, ignoring the sudden stinging in his chest. "Can you at least tell me why?"

She wrung her hands and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"I really don't know how to phrase this in a way that you would understand but—"

"Try me."

Finally, she took a seat near his desk and scooted the chair right up to the edge of it so she could rest her elbows on the surface. It was like she carried a weight too heavy for her to sustain on her own. Kyoko took a steadying breath.

"It feels like cheating."

"Cheating?" he asked, confused.

"As in I'm reaping benefits that I put in no effort to earn."

"You want to earn my love?" Ren wondered if he looked as desperately hopeful as he sounded.

Her hands flailed in disagreement.

"Yes… no… I don't know! I don't hate spending time with you, but I feel like your attention is little more than an ill-gotten gain."

He raised an eyebrow at her but kept quiet.

"Even if I could, I would never be able to commit to a relationship with you without being constantly reminded that you only feel the way you do about me because of a damned spell. Not a day would go by that I wouldn't question whether any of it was real," her sigh was weary and she pushed a hand through her hair. "Hell, not a day has gone by since this whole thing started that I _haven't_ questioned that."

"Oh."

"So… yeah. I guess you have your answer."

Ren remained silent for several agonizing seconds, choosing his next words carefully.

"Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me."

"Well, thanks for actually listening."

"I would always listen to what you have to say."

Kyoko scoffed, leaning back in her chair with her eyes pointed heavenward.

"Let's see if you feel the same way tomorrow."

"So, we're really doing this, aren't we?"

All she offered was a nod. Ren blinked slowly, took a deep breath and looked away.

"Well, there's no time like the present. I assume you'd like to be here for this?"

She sat up straight and looked at him, eyes wide with shock.

"You're going to do it now? Here?"

He looked her dead in the eye and saw his own fears reflected back at him.

"Trust me, Kyoko. If I had to do this on my own, I don't think I'd have the heart to go through with it."

He saw the corners of her mouth turn downward and her shoulders sag just a little. It wasn't his intention to bring the brunt of his dismay to bear on her, but he wanted to be honest. With both himself and her.

"How are we going to react when it's done and we find ourselves in your office at this time of night with no recollection of how we got here?" she countered.

Ren thought for a moment, trying to recall what he was doing the night she cast the first spell. From what he remembered, there was nothing odd about his behavior at that time and the buzzing in his head only started the next day when he agreed to go shopping for the coven. If this spell was similar, they most likely had until the following morning.

Hopefully.

"I don't believe it'll take effect until tomorrow, so we should be fine."

That seemed to be a good enough estimation for her.

"Alright then," she breathed. "Let's do this."

The book they needed was still in his office and he opened the page to the spell before handing it off to Kyoko. Rising from their chairs at the same time, they stood side-by-side at his desk. He asked her to read off the ingredients and summoned each of them from the coven storage room and lined them up on his desk before summoning his favorite bowl, an old, heavy marble one that had chips and cracks along the edge; each one told a story of his earlier days of learning magic.

Once they had everything they needed. It was time to begin.

Lighting the candles felt like a red-hot iron being forced through his chest. Each ingredient he added to the bowl mercilessly tore the hole that had formed in his heart wider and wider. Even the incantation was spoken with reluctant, trembling lips. But, Ren made a promise and he had every intention of keeping it. The ashes that remained in the bowl afterwards were an accurate depiction of what was left of his dream that Kyoko would change her mind.

Kyoko also stared into the bowl with empty eyes before finally tearing them away to look up at him. He could see in her face an unspoken apology.

"Since I've gone and spoiled our evening with this, I should probably go," she said in a small voice.

"You're more than welcome to stay," he said, his eyes darting between hers and trying to decide which to settle on.

"No, I… really should go."

He must have been looking at her in that longing way again, judging by her change in expression. She was always so entrancing, he couldn't help it around her. However, he noticed it softened a bit the longer she stared back at him. He wanted to know why. More importantly, he wanted to what she was thinking of just then. Perhaps it was the fact that everything was about to be over for them. Perhaps it was just the fact that he was standing so close to her.

"You're trying to stop yourself from asking to kiss me, aren't you?"

He couldn't help the anxious laugh that escaped, "Am I that obvious?"

"When you keep staring at me like that, you are."

"I'm sorry," he ducked his head, waiting for her reprimand.

"Don't be. I had almost convinced myself that I was going to agree to it."

Well, that certainly was not what he was expecting.

"You mean—"

"It's not as if we'll remember it after tonight anyway," a crooked grin formed on her face. "Besides, you kind of obsessed over it when we first met and I'm feeling generous enough to sate your curiosity."

His eyes went wide and he stared at her for several silent moments. No words came out of his mouth, but his lips moved all the same as he tried to comprehend exactly what she was offering him.

"I think I agree with you now when you said it feels like cheating."

It was her turn to laugh and he was helpless to explain how that one sound could both soothe and scar his heart at the same time.

"Well, we've already broken enough rules. What's one more going to hurt at this point?"

He nearly called the whole thing off when he saw the tremble in her fingers as she reached up towards him, but she looked so determined when she curled her hand into his collar that he let her guide his face down to hers.

It was a careful congress between their lips and they moved with an unhurried pace as if they had all the time in the world remaining. While the act itself was dizzyingly delightful in every way, Ren couldn't repress the ache in his heart. Every breath, every caress played a symphony of farewell that was building up to a crushing crescendo. At some point, he noticed the feeling of wetness on his cheeks and began to curse himself for making Kyoko cry.

He pulled away immediately, ready to apologize, when he realized that the tears were not hers.

"That—" she relented in a quiet voice. "That was probably a bad idea."

"At least we won't have much longer to regret it."

Ren tentatively lifted a hand to swipe at his face before he reconsidered and dropped it back to his side. There really was no reason to hide them from her. Not when they soon would have no memory that this night ever happened.

"Yea."

"Yea."

"I guess that's my cue to leave."

He stopped her with a gentle hand as she turned towards the door.

"If we meet again someday, I hope we'll both give each other a chance to get acquainted because I think we'd, at least, be very good friends. But, if we don't, I wanted to thank you, Kyoko. For everything."

Her smile was tired and sad.

"If anything, I should be the one thanking you."

* * *

Kyoko woke up in her usual state of muddled confusion, the lights filtering through her curtains and the alarm on her phone still chiming away. She reached over to turn it off and plodded her way to the bathroom to get ready for her day. It was still the weekend and she had a full day shift at the shop with Kanae.

Humming the tune that had been stuck in her head since she heard it playing in the restaurant the night before, she put the finishing touches on her makeup and adjusted her bracelets before turning off the bathroom light. Her boots were permanently tied just tight enough to keep them on her feet, but also loose enough to easily slip them on and off without retying the laces. She braced one hand against her front door while stuffing her feet into her boots and reached up with her other hand to grab her coat from where it hung nearby.

Instead of her coat, her fingers pulled down a scarf. She looked at it for a second, taking in the thin stripes of deep olive and gold patterned throughout the mostly dark blue fabric. Apparently, she'd forgotten to take it with her the day before so she could return it to Ren…

That thought stopped her in her tracks.

The hand against the door tightened into a fist and she pounded it once while an expletive hissed from her lips.

They did everything they were supposed to.

They followed the spell to the letter.

But, the fact that she still remembered the owner of the scarf she held meant only one thing.

"It didn't work," she whispered.

* * *

 **I'M NOT ENDING IT HERE, I SWEAR. That would just be cruel... well more cruel than my cliffhangers, at least.**

 **Many thanks to one of my best friends for getting me back on track with this story. She threatened to make me hang upside-down in her yoga hammock until I figured out where I wanted this to go. I still did it anyway, but not before she gave me some really good advice and suggestions (while I was still right side up, of course).**

 **Well, if a day ever comes when I can't write anymore, maybe I can go join a circus or something.**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	8. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Confused

**CHAPTER 8: ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW CONFUSED**

Saying that it was unseasonably cold for the time of year would've been a stretch. Second quarter was coming to an end — as evidenced by Kyoko's impending final exams — and spring was still only a hope. It was only unseasonably cold in the respect that Kyoko wished it could be so she could complain about the way the strong breeze threatened to freeze the current frown on her face and have it stay that way until the warmer temperatures arrived to thaw it out. She had to admit however, that Ren's scarf was astonishingly warm and she felt less conflicted about using it the further she buried her face into the soft fabric to ward off the chill.

He had yet to call her that morning and she assumed he was probably busy. Still, she figured he would have at least tried to get in touch with her as soon as he realized the spell wasn't effective. Then again, it was the weekend and he, most likely, was not needed at the coven.

"He's probably still sleeping," she grumbled, mostly out of envy.

She continued to grumble loudly all the way to work and, when she arrived at the shop, her friend ("I'm your boss _first_ ," she'd always complain) gave her a bemused look. Not bothering to dignify her with an explanation, Kyoko stormed across the room and threw her coat, purse and that damnable scarf into the closet behind the counter. With a huff, she took a seat at the counter.

Kanae opened her mouth, but Kyoko's glare quickly snapped it shut.

"I don't want to talk about it," she growled. "I'd rather not even think about it if I could and I certainly don't want to hear whatever cheeky comments I'm sure you have saved up."

"Bad day?"

"You could say that."

Kanae watched her for a few moments and Kyoko just knew she was tempted to ask what pea got under her hundred mattresses and feather beds causing her to be in such a bad mood. She could almost hear the question without her even speaking it. Common sense prevailed, however, and nothing else was said save for a few instructions to move some stock from the back room to one of the displays near the front window. Kyoko could work with that. The more she had to do, the more she was distracted from her thoughts.

She could feel Kanae's eyes on her the entire time she worked and pointedly ignored it, instead focusing on meticulously dusting each bottle, jar and box on the shelves of the store. As much as she wanted to vent to someone about it, she was more of the mind that there was one person in particular she had to discuss it with first.

And he _still_ hadn't called her.

Did he think he was doing her a favor? She figured he would have been over the moon the moment he realized it hadn't worked. Then again, perhaps he was but, knowing her thoughts on the matter, he was avoiding rubbing it in her face. He knew better than to push her. A soft sigh escaped her lips and she twirled the feather duster a bit more vigorously over the surface of the shelf in front of her. Damn him for being so considerate. He was probably giving her time to process so they could regroup and figure out what their next course of action should be.

She was reluctant to admit it, but it was true; he was being a responsible adult while she was being an ill-tempered child.

Still, the self-indulgent sulking felt good and she allowed herself to have at least that day to wallow in it. Tomorrow she could suck it up and formulate a plan, with Ren's help of course. Now that they both knew Maria Takarada not only remembered Ren, but thought highly of him, maybe they had her help too. But, those were thoughts for another day.

Back to sulking. And dusting.

The only redeeming part about having to work at the shop on the weekends was that it closed earlier than it did during the week. When they had locked the front door and dimmed the lights, Kyoko was still revelling in her brooding, though it had waned some over the past few hours. Bundled once again in her thick outerwear, she wrapped the scarf around her face. The soft fabric embraced her with warmth and she breathed in the traces of Ren that still clung between the woven fibers. It tickled at her lips and instantly conjured the memory of the night before and their farewell.

With a hiss, Kyoko ripped the scarf completely off her head and slammed it on the countertop.

"Hey, whoa! No need to treat my counter like that," Kanae warned from beside her. "Also, that scarf looks like it's expensive, you probably shouldn't treat that so harshly either."

"It's not mine so I really don't care."

"Oh? Who'd you steal it from?"

"I didn't steal it," she shook her head. "Ren left it in my apartment two nights ago."

"Ren who?"

Kyoko narrowed her eyes at her friend.

"Very funny, Kanae."

"I'm not joking," she said it in such a way that Kyoko was forced to believe her. "Now, tell me about your newest fling."

"He's not a fling. We aren't even together! How do you not remember any of this? I've been going to Vandersud every day for the past week!"

Her hands were waving frantically a she spoke, eliciting a peal of laughter from Kanae who followed it up with a number of delirious giggles. Kyoko stared at her like she had grown a second head.

"I think you're the one who's joking, Kyoko. You've been here with me all week except for when you were in class."

Her mouth hung open at this and she stood still for a moment before digging into the purse that hung at her side. Rummaging around the bottom, she found the lanyard containing her school identification. She knew that she had tucked the temporary pass she'd been issued from Vandersud behind it. Kyoko held up the lanyard proudly, displaying it to Kanae before pushing two fingers into the back of the protective sleeve that held her identification card to remove the item behind it. Squinting in the low light, she struggled to get a good look at it and had to bring it much closer to her face for inspection.

It was a coupon.

An _expired_ coupon.

For a cereal she didn't even like.

Kanae leaned forward to get a better look at the slip of paper before straightening back up, doubt clearly evident in her expression.

"Were you going to bribe me into believing you with an expired coupon?"

"I-I can explain."

"Can you?"

Kyoko hesitated for a long, agonizing moment. Could she explain why Kanae had no memory of the ordeal she'd relentlessly teased her about the entire week before? She could probably try, she reasoned. The spell must have done something, obviously, but the extent of its effect she didn't know. If she was honest, she was also a little scared of finding out. So, she shook her head.

"No, I don't think I can."

"How about we get something to eat instead?" she offered, her voice gentle. "You've been out of it all day. I thought it was just because you were grouchy about something."

"That's because I was."

"And what about now?"

Kyoko's nose wrinkled in thought.

"I'm… confused?"

"Maybe you were confused the entire time and that's what made you grumpy."

Kyoko was still in a daze from seeing the physical evidence of her previous week turned into a useless slip of paper. It was even dog-eared and wrinkled like it had been there for a considerable amount of time. All she could do in that moment was give an unsure nod.

"Maybe."

She let Kanae take the scarf still trapped under her splayed hand and fold it into a small bundle before silently ushering her out of the shop with a hand against her back. They continued like that the entire way to their favorite restaurant, Kyoko completely oblivious to the biting cold against her unprotected nose and mouth.

Later, a steaming hot bowl of soup was placed in front of her that she didn't remember ordering. For that matter, she didn't remember sitting at the table with Kanae in the first place. She eyed the vegetables floating in the murky, golden broth as if they would suddenly grow faces and begin teasing her. Dipping her spoon into the bowl, she quickly began to eat just so they wouldn't have the chance to do so.

Kyoko had a lot to process. What's more, she had a lot investigating to do to figure out what — and who — else had been affected by the spell.

Her brain was exhausted just from thinking about it.

Kanae kept watching her, the desire to ask more questions clearly evident on her face. To her credit, however, she kept quiet. Kyoko was glad that she understood her need to keep her thoughts to herself for the time being. Either that or her own expression was threatening enough to prevent it. Well, she got the desired effect either way.

They ate mostly in silence, peppered here and there with short conversations about nonessentials. The shop was doing well and Kanae was considering expanding, but nothing any time soon. Kyoko's classes were going fine, as far as she knew. She couldn't be completely sure since she had no idea of what transpired in Kanae's version of last week. Of course, it would take nothing short of a drastic personality change for Kyoko to encounter any difficulties in her studies. Then again, she could think of someone who _had_ gone through a drastic personality change in the past week, at least to her remembrance. And he still had yet to call her.

Just where the hell _was_ he?!

A tiny thought was born in that moment, springing forth from the depths of her mind and bounding around awkwardly like a foal still adjusting to its own legs. Upon acknowledging said thought, the spoonful of soup she'd just fed herself turned to ash in her mouth. It was remarkably pessimistic, this thought, and one that was classically Kyoko in nuance. Thus, she started up a new round of meaningless discourse with Kanae, if only to divert her attention away from it.

Because, it just couldn't be possible.

Could it?

"I can tell that something big is bothering you," Kanae's voice broke through the haze of her thoughts. "You know that I'll listen to you about whatever it is."

"I know. I, uh…"

"You're not quite there yet, are you," Kanae finished for her and she nodded in agreement.

"It's a lot more complicated than I thought. Until I put more pieces together I don't think I could explain it very well anyway."

Ah, yes, that was about as specific as pointing out a single blade of grass in a giant field. Well done, Kyoko.

"You look like you're itching to find one of those missing pieces," Kanae shooed her with a wave of her hand. "Go do what you need to and I'll take care of the check."

Kyoko put a hand on her chest and her lips curled into a grateful smile.

"Aw, that's so nice of you! You're the best friend, a girl could ask for."

"Don't worry, I'll be taking your half out of your check."

"And _that's_ the boss I know and love." Kyoko rolled her eyes.

Kanae laughed and wished her good night, before motioning again for her to leave.

As much as Kyoko wanted to go, she was equally as reluctant. Stepping outside the restaurant, she idled on the sidewalk for a moment, considering her next move. The feel of the scarf wrapped once more around her face told her that she should at least try to contact Ren. However, she was having a hard time summoning the courage to make her legs actually propel her anywhere closer to the Vandersud coven.

Settling for the path of least resistance, she reached into one of her coat pockets for her phone. Now that the sun had set, it was too cold to remove her gloves, so she lazily used her nose to enter her passcode before navigating to her list of most recently called numbers. It didn't show up in the first ten numbers, so she scrolled down with her nose and looked again.

Still nothing.

A huff of irritation was muffled by the scarf as she pulled off one of her gloves, tucking it halfway into her pocket before navigating to her contacts. She quickly typed his name into the search bar, her fingers moving as quickly as possible so she could make the call and return them to the cozy warmth of their glove. The spinning blue circle on the screen rotated a total of three times before disappearing to reveal a blank screen.

No entries found.

The unfortunate thought that her mind had previously conceived now galloped around her head like a confident yearling. If she were honest, the fact that her temporary pass had transformed into a coupon should have generated that thought much sooner. But, she was stubborn then. To be more precise, she was still stubborn now.

At last, her legs found the motivation to move and she half walked, half scurried over to Vandersud.

Covens were, thankfully, open quite late due to their members needing access to resources at random times during the day and this one was no exception. Jogging up the stone steps, Kyoko turned the knob and pushed in the front door with a bit too much force, nearling falling into the reception area before catching herself at the last moment. Using the momentum to stumble her way over to the front desk, she ignored the strange looks sent her way by both the receptionist and the fair-haired man who was on his way out of the same door through which she entered.

"May I help you?"

Kyoko swallowed, still catching her breath from the brisk walk.

"Yes, I'd like to speak to Ren Tsuruga if he's available."

The receptionist's face crumpled with bewilderment.

"I'm sorry, but we don't have anyone here by that name.

"What? But he's—"

She choked on the remainder of her sentence when she looked up at the large placard on the wall behind her. The one she'd seen many times in the past week. It listed the names of those coven members who held executive positions, the coven head, assistant head and trustees included. His name was nowhere to be found. In fact, right where Ren's name had been engraved into the brass plate under Coven Head just the night before was the name of someone else.

Yukihito Yashiro.

A quick apology was mumbled and she provided the quickest excuse her addled brain could create; that she had been given inaccurate information. Refusing to look the receptionist in the eye any longer, she lowered her head in a clumsy nod and quickly turned back towards the door. She was on the front steps of the coven before she could even blink.

It was so much worse than she'd imagined. Her arrogance had convinced her that she was the only one the spell had not worked on and everyone else's memories were effectively wiped, Ren's included. During her walk to the coven, she had almost convinced herself that, if such was the case, it probably wasn't a bad thing and she could learn to adjust to having a week of her life being completely rewritten. Now, she had a much more dangerous and terrifying theory. They hadn't just wiped out a series of memories.

They'd wiped out someone's entire existence.

Kyoko knew she should go back to her apartment, but the thought of being alone with this was seeming less and less preferable by the second. She reached into her coat again for her phone and dialled the top number on her recently called list. The person on the other end picked up after five rings.

"Kyoko?"

She took a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut tightly and desperately trying to will away the quaver she knew would be in her voice.

"I think I'm ready to talk to someone about it now."

* * *

 **I ONLY WISH I COULD SEE YOUR FACES RIGHT NOW. You'll just have to describe it to me in a review.**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	9. No Use Scrying Over Spilled Memories

**CHAPTER 9: NO USE SCRYING OVER SPILLED MEMORIES**

"That's impossible."

"And yet, here we are," Kyoko said before taking a slow sip from the mug of tea in her hand.

Kanae picked up the mug she had prepared for herself and followed suit, most likely using the time to think of her next words. In that moment, Kyoko was eternally grateful to have a friend like her. Kanae wasted no time in ordering her to come to her apartment shortly after that panicked phone call from outside the coven.

Steam rose from her mug into the air in a lazy curl and Kyoko breathed in the scent of the special blend Kanae had made for them. Kanae's unparalleled skill with teas was underrated by the fact that she only commercially produced blends that served a more vain clientele with weight-loss and beautification teas being the most in demand. Her personal collection was much more eclectic and this particular cup she brewed was no exception. It was supposed to be something that was both soothing for overwrought nerves, but also energizing so they could both think properly about the situation. Since Kyoko's herbology class was several quarters ago, she couldn't name every ingredient but her nose was definitely picking out hints of vervain, sage and ginger.

"It's impossible," Kanae tried again. "You can't just poof someone out of being. That kind magic doesn't exist . Besides, if it did, it wouldn't be accessible by just _anyone_. You got that spell from a book that numerous archives have."

Kyoko breathed in another lungful of tea-scented air and her brain fixated on the fact that she definitely caught notes of passionflower for half of a second. She was, honestly, not prepared for Kanae to believe her ridiculous story right away. Still, the fact that she did made their subsequent conversation much easier. According to her friend, the look on her face alone told her that she wasn't lying. She had no idea what expression she wore when she arrived at the apartment, but it must have been impactful enough.

"Well, if you have any other explanation, I'm all ears."

Kyoko threw herself backwards into the cushions of Kanae's sofa, causing a few droplets of tea to slosh over the side of her mug and onto her lap. She rubbed the liquid into her pants with a tired sigh. Beside her, Kanae lifted a hand briefly before letting it fall again, shaking her head to dismiss whatever thought she just had.

The hand lifted again and snapped once and Kanae turned towards her.

"I don't have an explanation, but we've definitely overlooked a very obvious method of checking to see if your theory is right."

One eyebrow arched high over Kyoko's left eye as she regarded her friend. Her brain rushed through an inventory of all of her available options, both magical and mundane. Three seconds elapsed in total silence before her right eyebrow joined its twin, opening both of her eyes wide with realization.

Right. That was always an option, wasn't it? Clearly, the tea was working.

Kyoko closed her eyes and made a groan of irritation at her own oversight.

"Of course," she nodded. "We could try scrying him, couldn't we?"

"You always did love to take the complicated route when the simplest one was staring you in the face."

Kanae's smile was lopsided, one side weighted down by the sheer volume of knowledge she had about Kyoko's less-than-favorable tendencies. She let out a short laugh and got up from the sofa, calling over her shoulder as she went to rummage in a nearby closet.

"Are you okay with fire? I know how you feel about using someone else's bowl."

"I'm stronger with water, actually," Kyoko ran a sluggish hand through her hair until she finally had the energy to get up. "Considering the circumstances, I think I can make an exception just this once."

"Water it is, then."

Kanae returned with a dark stone bowl flecked with bits of white and grey and placed it on the dining table in her kitchen. Kyoko was right behind her with a pitcher of water and filled the bowl to the brim before motioning for her friend to turn off the lights in all of the rooms. The kitchen table was perfectly positioned in front of a window, allowing the dim light from the moon to fall upon it, casting vague shadows with soft edges. Repositioning the bowl twice to get the right angle, Kyoko placed a chair in front of it and sat down.

"I'd offer to help, but I can't scry someone I have no memory of," Kanae shrugged.

"I know," Kyoko gave her a tight smile "Thanks all the same."

Placing her hands on either side of the bowl, she focused on the surface of the water, letting the darkness that fluttered under the moonlight's reflection create an illusion of unfathomable depths. She let herself get drawn into it, reaching out with her own energy as she pulled memories of Ren from her mind. Darkness was all she saw while she continued to sift through anything and everything she could recollect about him.

From the memories of their first meeting up until the the lecture they attended together, she was surrounded by perpetual darkness and _nothing_. And not the pleasant sort of nothing one encounters when one's favorite museum or shop is blissfully empty of all other patrons and the satisfying solitude of being able to walk around in peace can be thoroughly enjoyed. No, this nothing was the awkward pause in a conversation between friends who hadn't seen each other in years once they realized they no longer have anything in common turned all the way up to eleven on the dial.

It wasn't until she finally dredged up the memory of their kiss that she saw a flash of light before it faded into more nothingness. She breathed slowly out through her mouth and pulled her hands away from the bowl. Blinking twice to refocus her eyes, she looked up at Kanae in the darkness.

"It would appear that the known universe has zero entries by that name."

Kanae crossed her arms and chewed at her lips for a moment in thought.

"What about the scarf?"

Kyoko squinted. "What about it?"

"You said it was his. Why don't you try using that to strengthen the focus?"

She glanced at the bowl, sitting placidly in it's bath of pale illumination. Well, it was worth a shot at least. Before she could rise from her chair, Kanae had already gone to pull the scarf from where it lay beside her coat near the door. The bundle of warm fabric was held reverently in her hands when she returned to the kitchen.

Kyoko wrapped the scarf twice around her neck before starting again.

Well, it was certainly a game changer, in a way. The darkness soon gave way to reveal not a person, but memories. They weren't her memories, however she did feature in them; some of them, at least. It did not take long for her to realize they were Ren's memories, but there was something very, very wrong with them.

They were backwards.

Each memory played before her in reverse, like watching a muted video being rewound at high speed. She struggled to keep up with the blur of images and the scarf around her neck began to feel itchy and tight. Everything moved so fast, it was overwhelming and she felt as if her very breath were being stolen away. The momentum only increased the longer she continued to look at them and the backs of her eyes began to burn.

Tighter and tighter, the scarf seemed to believe it was a boa constrictor as it wrapped itself around her neck and she was gasping for air to the point of hyperventilation. A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away from the bowl, slamming her against the back of the chair. Kyoko broke from her trance, sucking in a deep breath as her shaking hands released their grip from the sides of the bowl. One hand reached up to pull the scarf from her neck and throw it far away as if it would somehow return to attack her.

"Kyoko, are you alright?"

She'd never heard Kanae's voice this quiet or timid before.

"Yea," she rasped, rubbing at her neck before trying again. "Yea, I'm fine."

"What did you see?"

"A lot." She stopped and corrected herself. "Too much. Everything was too fast for me to make out more than just a few things at a time."

Somewhere over the course of her sentence, Kanae managed to vanish and reappear with a glass of water, which she now offered to Kyoko.

"Did you see anything helpful?"

She took a large gulp of water. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Like I said, it was too fast," she defended quickly. "But the last thing I noticed before you pulled me out of it was a house."

"Just a house?"

"Well, it was sort of a big house and I guess he was walking towards it?" She shook her head. "No, away. Away from it."

"How could you not tell the difference?"

"It was backwards."

"What?!"

"Everything I saw was in reverse and it was like I was looking out from his eyes. Not once did I actually see _him_. I just knew it had to be from his point of view because I could see myself as he saw me."

"Wait, wait, wait." Kanae held up a hand. "So you didn't see anything current like his whereabouts or anything?"

"No, just memories… or what appeared to be memories anyway."

"Backwards memories," her friend added.

Kyoko hummed in agreement over another mouthful of water.

"I don't know what to make of this," Kanae said, pushing her long, dark hair away from her face with both hands.

Kyoko let out a snort that echoed into the glass near her mouth, causing it to have an even hollower tone than it originally had when the feeble attempt at levity first left her lips.

"Welcome to the club."

* * *

Advanced Translations was typically a very fascinating course for Kyoko. She loved learning the nuances behind many of the runes and symbols used in the older spell notations. Spell documentation had such a rich history that class time often felt like a relaxing vacation where she could bask in the grandeur of the evolution of magic across the eras.

Of course, her current troubles made everything less enjoyable than normal as her mind was constantly plagued by unhelpful thoughts and worries and an overall sense of dread. Even Professor Shingai's voice, usually a pleasant sound to her ears, now droned like irritating background noise. She spent the majority of the class writing random notes and questions that popped into her head and drawing vague outlines of a human body before covering it with question marks.

"... and can anyone tell me what this character means? Miss Mogami, perhaps?"

Kyoko's pen dropped onto her notepad and she looked up, her eyes taking several moments to focus on the item in question. Smoothly turning her whine of dismay into a cough, she used the brief pause it afforded her to find her voice again. She knew that character all too well.

"Memory or remembrance."

"Correct," the professor nodded. "But, did you know that up until roughly two centuries ago, it had a different meaning?"

She did not know that, so she shook her head appropriately.

"This was like a lot of words in our common language that changed meanings over the years. However, it was a rather complex meaning that does not have a direct translation in our language today. The closest appropriate word is something along the lines of 'echo.'"

"Echo?"

Kyoko almost didn't notice she'd asked the question out loud. Luckily, the professor was inclined to indulge her and continued his explanation.

"Like I said, it doesn't have an appropriate direct translation. Echo was more of a vague, conceptual term, bordering almost on poetry, to describe the meaning of this character. It's actual meaning is better described as 'those instances of ourselves in which we are interactive with others.'"

She could only imagine the look of bewilderment on her face — and, most likely those of her classmates — that caused her professor to laugh.

"I know, not very helpful. Think of it as a sort of shared or associative memory, like a memory you have that others can also recollect."

Clearly, everyone was still having trouble with the concept. Kyoko included.

"Alright, let's try breaking it down further. Do you know how two people can have a slightly different memory of the same event even though they were both present?" When enough students nodded, he continued. "Echoes are all of those memories of one event during which multiple people are present. Just like real echoes are repetitions of the same sound that are not quite identical to the original sound itself."

The silence in the room spoke volumes about how well everyone grasped that particular explanation. As for Kyoko, she understood a fair bit of it, but her comprehension was causing an uncomfortable, gnawing feeling in her gut. The longer she stared at the character on the whiteboard, the more intense the feeling became. Thankfully, another student came to her rescue with a diversion.

"What about memories where only one person is present?"

"Like when you throw a wad of paper at the bin from a long distance and get it in with one attempt and no one was around to witness it?" Shingai asked.

Everyone laughed and the student nodded.

"That wouldn't qualify, unfortunately, since it's an isolated memory. Suffice it to say, I'm sure you can all see why the more complex use of this character went out of fashion long ago in favor of a more simplified meaning."

Kyoko, for one, was quite happy to live in a time when words mostly had simple, understandable meanings that didn't involve complicated thought experiments to explain. She didn't know who she had to thank for that, but she was almost inclined to find out just so she could burn a candle in their memory out of sheer gratitude.

"So, what about spells that were written during the time when the previous meaning was used?" yet another student asked.

"Thankfully there weren't that many," Professor Shingai smiled, clearly enjoying the engaging discourse. "Spells that could have an effect on echoes was rare and complex, not to mention fairly unpopular with the magic community as a whole for obvious reasons."

The reasons were obvious only to the one person in the room currently speaking, so they elaborated.

"It was because there was no way to confirm that the spell had the intended effect. If the echoes were altered in any way, no one who shared the memory would have any knowledge of the original one."

That seemed to make sense to most of the students and they nodded in understanding. While there was still a bit more material to cover, they had to stop there for now as the class period was officially over. Professor Shingai dismissed everyone and Kyoko took her time leaving the room to allow the other students to rush out ahead of her. Once she had her things packed into her bag and the two other remaining students filed out of the room, she quietly made her way to the front, intent on asking her professor the question that she was sure was causing the gnawing feeling. She managed to get their attention and get out the first two words of a question when the door to the classroom opened and in walked a petite package of curls and velvet.

Maria Takarada.

Kyoko's coat pocket seemed like a good place to stuff her hand after she partially raised it to wave at the woman before realizing that she had no reason to remember her. She hoped Maria wouldn't notice her slip-up as she did not have the mental fortitude at the moment to come up with a convincing lie about it. The older woman did narrow her eyes briefly, but swept past her as if she were the lady of a manor and Kyoko was little more than the cleaning staff, and approached the man at the desk.

He was about to introduce them when Maria waved it off with a hand.

"We've already had the pleasure of meeting," she said with a smile that turned Kyoko's insides into a jumbled mess of confusion and anxiety.

Kyoko nodded, then mumbled a weak excuse to divest herself from their company. When she was a mere two steps away from the door, she heard her name being called from behind her. It stopped her in her tracks and sent her heart rate from _andante_ to _prestissimo_ in an instant. She turned slowly to find Maria looking at her with that same smile as before.

"If you have a moment, I'd like to chat with you outside once I'm done here."

Kyoko nodded again, this time it was wobblier and she was sure it was probably reminiscent of those large-headed decorations people often place on the dashboards of their cars. Eyes still glued to Maria, her hand reached for the handle of the door and missed twice before she properly grasped it. With an awkward sort of bow, she was out the door and in the hallway.

To the untrained eye, and anyone who didn't know Kyoko well, she would have appeared as nothing more than another tired student, leaning against the wall and trying to muster the strength to endure one more class. To those who knew her, she would have appeared exactly as she was in that moment.

Distraught.

Maria _remembered_ her. How did she remember her? At first, Kyoko thought it was just her hands that were shaking until she realized she was quite mistaken. Her entire body was vibrating with tiny tremors that pulsed through her. Her coat felt all at once too heavy and too warm. This was panic. She was panicking. Where was Kanae's special tea when she needed it?

How on earth did everything go sideways so quickly and spectacularly? If there was a way to go back in time and slap her past self before she ever had time to cast that ridiculous spell, she was convinced she probably wouldn't even think twice about trying it. Anything had to be better than this. Unfortunately, time manipulation magic was extremely dangerous… and that was when it actually _worked._

Kyoko slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor with her legs splayed out haphazardly on either side of her and her bag pushed uncomfortably up under her arm. That was precisely where Maria found her several minutes later when she emerged from the classroom.

"Oh get up from there already," Maria commanded in a sharp tone. "Honestly, you look like someone removed all the bones from your body. What happened to witty girl I met last week?"

"You… you remember that?"

Tucking her feet underneath her, Kyoko pushed herself upward until she was standing once again.

"I do, and it would appear you do as well," she nodded. "And, if you're still here, that leads me to my next question."

She knew the question before Maria even voiced it. There was only one that would logically follow up the fact that they both recognized each other from a week that, according to everyone else, never happened. It was the same question Kyoko had been asking herself over and over from the moment she left Vandersud two days before.

"What happened to Ren?"

* * *

 **THE RUMORS ARE TRUE: I am an evil, evil author.**

 **Not only did I release a chapter with a devastating cliffhanger, I posted it on April Fool's Day so you couldn't even be sure whether or not it was real. Yes, I totally did that on purpose (and if you're wondering why, see above for reason).**

 **I legitimately wanted to go the expected route and have the spell work on everyone except for Kyoko. But, then I thought "where's the fun in that?" And now you have this.**

 **I'm not even a little bit sorry.**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	10. It's Always the First Place You Look

**CHAPTER 10: IT'S ALWAYS THE FIRST PLACE YOU LOOK**

LME had several cafeterias, the smallest of which was nestled in one corner of campus behind the gym. Usually, it was the least frequented as it had the smallest variety of offerings for students and faculty alike. Of course, it was bustling and packed nearly to capacity on this particular day when Kyoko decided to choose it as the venue for her and Maria to talk. Because nothing was going to go her way. From the moment she cast that damned spell she was, apparently, doomed to a life of mediocre luck and moderate inconveniences.

Maria was unperturbed, however, and set up a muting perimeter around their table. She even threw in an additional glamor that prevented their lips from being readable, mostly because she could. Kyoko could only look on in dumbfounded appreciation until the older woman settled herself in her chair and looked at her with rapt attention. Maria Takarada was expecting answers and she guessed (correctly) that Kyoko had them.

And this is how she found herself spilling her guts to a complete stranger in an overly crowded campus cafeteria. She was out of breath by the end, but she told the woman everything that happened; the first spell, the unfortunate meeting (both of them), the research, the breakthrough and the pseudo-dates that followed, the second spell and even the kiss. Having someone else actually remember the week that no one else seemed to remember loosened her tongue in a way she had not anticipated.

"But, none of this explains why you still remember what everyone else has forgotten," Kyoko concluded. "Then again, it doesn't explain why I remember either."

"Well, in my case it's simple," Maria gestured to herself with a ring-laden hand. "A Takarada spell never works on a Takarada. Lory apparently thought that was an important exception to the rule."

"Considering my current predicament," Kyoko rolled her eyes. "I was clearly born into the wrong family."

Maria smiled despite young woman's grumbling.

"You'd be singing a different tune if you had to reconcile two completely different timelines in your head like I'm having to right now," she saw Kyoko wince sympathetically. "Anyway, your 'predicament' has a simple explanation too, you know."

"Which is?"

The older witch leaned forward, her smile curling tighter into a knowing grin. "You love him."

"No," Kyoko's reply was flat and matter-of-fact.

"It's true."

"But it's not," Kyoko insisted. "The whole reason we agreed to reverse the spell was because I _didn't_ love him."

"While that may be what you told him, and yourself, it was a lie," Maria ignored the young woman shaking her head in protest. "Rather than disagreeing with me, shouldn't you be asking how I know this?"

Kyoko stopped. "Fine, how _do_ you know all this?"

"The burden of the Takarada legacy is one that's meant to be carried by family members only. We know the most because this knowledge is given exclusively to us. While we are not forbidden from sharing it with others, as it is our greatest pride and our greatest shame, we have all chosen to keep it a family secret of sorts," Maria shook her head and waved a dismissive hand in the air before continuing. "But, I'm rambling and that's not the answer you were looking for, sorry. The correct answer is, if you didn't love him, the spell would've worked as it was intended."

"You — what?!" Kyoko's brain finally latched on to the more important part of her explanation.

"What is that phrase my daughter likes to use?" Maria mused aloud, dragging her index finger in spirals along the table's surface. "Oh, yes. You got 'the bad ending.'"

"How?"

"For as much as Lory Takarada was painted as a hopeless romantic, there was one thing the biographies always forgot to mention; he never believed that what most people called 'fate' was something set in stone. As such, all of his love spells were perfectly reversible provided that whatever feelings between the two parties involved were not reciprocated. However, if that was not the case, and one or both individuals were not truthful about their feelings, they were — essentially — punished."

"So I'm being _punished_ because I couldn't commit to a relationship with someone I'd never met prior to a week ago?"

Kyoko's anger was palpable, and warranted, but Maria did her best to keep her on track.

"Technically, you're both being punished, but not because you refused to commit. It's because you chose to use magic to fix the problem instead of just communicating with Ren about your hesitance to move forward."

"But I… I _did_ tell him! A-and he sort of agreed with me," Kyoko was tripping over her words in her frustration. "That's why we did the spell together."

"Couldn't you just as easily have asked him for more time to get to know each other? To take things slowly?" Maria suggested, narrowing her eyes. "From the way you talk about him, it sounds as if he was more than willing to respect your decisions. You didn't have to cast yet another spell. Especially since the first one got you into this whole mess in the first place."

Kyoko's head was buried in her folded arms on top of the table by that point.

"How was I supposed to know any of this?" her mournful moan was muffled by her arms.

"Lory knew very well that certain runes had different meanings as many of the older ones were on their way out while he was still a student. He used that to his advantage later on when he began creating his own spells. They were supposed to be a subtle warning. Of course, few people ever realized it until it was too late. There are many reasons you're all taught to avoid the dangers of love magic," Maria leaned forward in her seat. "My great-great grandfather is probably the most prominent one."

Kyoko raised her head. Her face was pale and remorseful and she shifted in her chair with obvious unease. Maria did make a valid point. There was something to be said about the fact that she relied on magic to fix her problems. From the time she had her heart broken, she leant hard on it like a crutch, expecting it to keep her standing when she could've easily done so on willpower alone. She took the easy way out.

And Ren paid the price for it.

"So, how do I fix this? _Can_ I even fix this?" the questions spilled out of her with words devoid of any hope. "Did the alternate translation of the spell's runes really mean that we erased all of Ren's echoes? Does he not exist anymore?"

"Oh, goodness, no. That sort of magic isn't possible," Maria laughed and reached across the table to console her with a hand. "Ren is very much alive and well. He's just… not himself. Or, to be more specific, he would no longer be the Ren that you or I knew. While the spell's alternate translation does mention the erasure of echoes, it is only those echoes that led him to you."

Kyoko was, predictably, confused. "But, we didn't know each other until last week."

"That doesn't mean you weren't _going_ to know each other in the near future. Or, perhaps that was the very scenario in which you were supposed to meet. Now, however, the choices he made that put him in a position to meet you have been undone. In the reality that you created by reversing the spell, I've never officially met him as he did not attend LME and you've already learned that he is not the coven head at Vandersud. Which means that this makes your job much harder if you're really intent on setting things right."

Kyoko winced, already anticipating the worst. "Please don't say what I think you're going to say."

"Wherever he is. Whoever he is. You're going to have to find him," Maria paused for effect "and tell him you love him."

All strength in Kyoko's neck disappeared and her head flopped towards the table again with a thud loud enough to made Maria flinch. It was a good thing no one else in the cafeteria could hear that. Or the guttural sigh that erupted out of her.

"So you're saying I have to search through a haystack of, potentially, seven billion people just to find one _stupid_ needle."

"And handsome," Maria added with an encouraging smile, patting Kyoko's arm with one hand. "You forgot handsome."

* * *

Kuon Hizuri cursed himself for the umpteenth time since he arrived in the city. He cursed the impulsiveness that forced him to travel there in the first place. He cursed the fact that he ever listened to his parents who not only allowed, but facilitated, his excursion. Mostly, he cursed his dreams.

They were stupid, really.

Well, not necessarily stupid so much as mundane. Boring. Dreams are, typically, supposed to be wild adventures that made little sense and changed settings about as often as they changed characters. They're supposed to be fantasies made real or a series of bizarre events. But his? They were approximately the excitement equivalent of washing the dishes.

Actually, he dreamt about washing dishes once.

They were lonely too, his dreams. He was always alone and he was always doing something mind-numbingly dull. Paperwork, the purpose of which he couldn't quite remember. Eating a hasty meal in an expensively decorated office. Even getting dressed featured often enough and those were only the most recent ones he could recall.

What he couldn't recall was when they started, though that hardly seemed like an issue. Nothing about them kept him awake at night and, for the most part, he slept as he normally did. He never woke suddenly with his heart racing and face sweating. But, that was the bit that set him on edge, the tiny, irritating little thing that bothered him like the itchy tag on the inside of a shirt collar.

It was all infuriatingly _normal_.

At first, his parents joked that his life was just too exciting when he was awake that his subconscious was seeking balance while he slept. Thankfully, it was a joke that wore thin quickly enough. His mother would stroke her fingers through his habitually messy blond hair and suggest that he talk about his dreams, thinking it would help if he at least shared them with someone else. It felt odd, talking about dreams that would rate no higher than a zero-point-five on a scale of how interesting they were. It's not as if they were remarkable in any way that required a coping mechanism.

But, there he was on a couch, with his head in his mother's lap after they had invited him to join them for dinner one night — in reality it was less of an invitation and more coercion on the part of his mother, complete with overblown theatrics about how she hadn't seen him in _forever;_ forever being two days — telling her about an office with a Rococo sofa upholstered in a mint green brocade, Impressionist oil paintings hung on the walls and dainty porcelain teacups.

"That sounds an awful lot like my office at my former coven," his father interrupted, entering the living room from the nearby kitchen.

"The one from when you were the Head at Vandersud?" his mother asked, looking over her shoulder at her husband who nodded.

"Did one of the paintings have a woman and two little girls playing on a beach?"

"In white dresses and straw hats?" Kuon supplied, sitting up to allow his mother to shift and make room for his father to join them. "It was on the wall directly to the right of the desk."

"Yes," his father breathed, half in awe and half in disbelief. "That one was my favorite."

"Now, this _is_ interesting," his mother turned to the man now sitting beside her, her face one of intrigue mixed with worry. "Kuu, why is our son having dreams about _your_ old office?"

His father opened his mouth to speak before immediately closing it again. His facial features scrunched together, indicating he was trying to conjure a suitable answer to the question. Eventually, his once-furrowed brow flattened out and he offered a smile to his wife and son.

"Well, why don't we find out?"

With two waves of his hand through the air, he summoned a deck of cards. He removed roughly two-thirds of them before handing the remainder off to his wife. Her long fingers closed around the much smaller stack and she began to deftly shuffle through them.

"Major Arcana only, huh?" she remarked.

Kuu shrugged. "It felt right."

His wife only nodded once in agreement before drawing three cards from the stack and laying them on the coffee table in front of the couch.

"The nature," she said, placing The Wheel of Fortune upright on the table.

"The cause."

Next came the Hanged Man, reversed which made the illustration of the man appear to be standing on the cross which held him instead of dangling from it.

"And finally, the solution."

The final card was laid upright on the table with a brightly watercolored depiction of a man and woman. The Lovers.

"He's in emotional turmoil because of a woman?" Kuu spoke his thoughts aloud, shaking his head at the cards on the table. "No, that's not quite right. Julie, a little help here."

"Something is at work here that's beyond his control," his wife spoke quietly, her eyes darting between the cards with fierce concentration. "He's held in a standstill because of a needless sacrifice and yet…"

She trailed off, tracing the outline of the third card with a single finger before ghosting over the first.

"A choice has to be made to set things in motion again, but I'm not certain whether the choice is his to make," Julie frowned, pointing to the third card, "or someone else's."

Kuon sat off to one side as all of this took place, failing to comprehend why any of this was necessary or even important. But, it was important, he could tell that at least. His parents only brought out the tarot carts for two things; playing card games and help with finding the answer to a significant question. His mother was more adept with botanicals, cultivating plants and experimenting to find new ways to use them for spells. As the Head of his coven, his father had to be well-rounded, but would tell everyone his favorite form of magic was cooking... which wasn't untrue. However, his specialty had always been with charms.

As such, divination was neither their penchant nor their strong suit. But, in that moment, they were wholly invested.

"I don't understand," Kuon said finally. "You said that it's beyond my control, so am I even supposed to do something about this?"

Julie turned away from her husband. She fanned out the remaining cards in her hand and held them up, offering them to Kuon. He pointed at them and raised an eyebrow in query.

"Take one," she instructed. "And only one. Focus on what it is you want to know and pull the one you are drawn to."

She didn't have to tell him how to choose a card, he'd paid enough attention in divination class during his schooling to know how the cards worked and how to properly select from them, but he saw no point in mentioning it. He rubbed the fingers of one hand against each other for a moment before reaching out and pulling a single card from the left side of the spread deck. Kuon held the card between two fingers, studying the pattern of gold filigree on a navy background on the back of it before slowly turning it over to rest beside the other three on the table.

The Fool.

Kuu was the first to break the silence in the room, "Did you remember seeing a statue from the window of the office in your dreams?"

Kuon looked away from the card on the table and met his father's eyes, "Yeah, there was big one in the distance that sort of looked like a man on fire."

His father nodded.

"Did you happen to see it anywhere else in your dreams?"

Kuon thought about it. It couldn't be that difficult to remember. A statue of a man covered in flames was not exactly something that was easily forgotten once you witnessed it. He focused on what he remembered it looked like; a towering effigy of bronze bars of varying widths and lengths welded together in an intricate web-like pattern to resemble a human form. The more he thought on it, the easier it became to remember where else he had seen it.

He had been washing those damned dishes.

"I could see it from a kitchen window in an apartment," he answered. "And I believe I saw it again from an empty city street at night."

Kuu nodded before focusing again on his wife. The two exchanged a long, meaningful look before she got up from the couch with a sigh.

"I suppose I'll go make some calls," was all she said before leaving the room.

"Wait, what's going on?"

Kuon watched his father point to the fourth card on the table. The one he had just recently pulled from the deck.

"You remember what this card means, right?"

Of course he did. Playing card games with his parents as a child had been a covert learning experience that he never realized until he'd gotten older. Once he had, he noticed it was something they did with a fair number of other family activities as well. They managed to include impromptu lessons on the interpretations of the cards that were played during a game and, by the time he was starting his formal training in magic, he had comprehensive knowledge of all seventy-eight cards in the deck.

"Since it's upright, it's something along the lines of taking a risk or embarking on a journey, right?" He waited for his father to indicate he was correct before continuing. "But where am I supposed to go?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

Kuon shook his head.

"You've been having dreams about my hometown. A place you haven't seen or visited since you were an infant."

"And that automatically means I need to go back there?"

"No, not necessarily," Kuu relented. "However, if you're interested in finding out more about your strange dreams, that does seem like the logical place to start."

"What about my work at the coven?" Kuon protested. "I'm still in the middle of a bunch of projects."

"It's been taken care of," Julie called out upon her return to the room. "You will receive an authorized transfer to the research department of Vandersud in the morning."

His mouth was agape with shock and indignance. Why were his parents so suddenly on board with shipping him off to a city in another country without even consulting with him as to whether or not he was even interested?

"Sweetheart, I know this is a decision that you alone should make," his mother wasn't a mind-reader, but she knew her son well enough to know what his expression meant. "You showed so much courage in choosing to get help after the loss of your best friend and you've grown and recovered immensely in the years since then. But, when the cards said you were in stagnation, they were right. It's time for you to venture out on your own and experience new things."

"If this choice was left up to you, we both knew you'd prefer to stay where you are," his father chimed in. "So, as the very last unilateral move as your parents, we are making it for you.

Kuon didn't think it was possible to feel so loved and yet so betrayed at the same time.

"Besides, if you have a terrible time, you can blame us for it," his mother happily added. "But, if you end up enjoying yourself, we're taking all the credit."

He shook himself out of the memory with a grunt. Well, he was certainly blaming them both for the time being. Homesickness was never a concept with which he was familiar, but it hit him like a truckload of bricks every time he found himself alone. He missed his home. He missed his family, odd and eccentric as they were. All he wanted was to go back.

Instead, he spent several hours in orientation at a coven that was simultaneously completely new to him and strangely familiar. It was late in the evening when everything finished and he had his updated identification that granted him access to the premises. Kuon was tired and ready to collapse on the bed of the tiny apartment that was arranged in advance for him to use. He hadn't even had time to fully unpack. And then he was nearly bowled over by a young woman, at least a head shorter than him, who barreled through the front door of the coven with all the dangerous force of a cannonball.

And that was probably the best day he'd had thus far.

The research project he was assigned to was actually quite interesting and he was eager to work on it. That was until he met the rest of the team and quickly learned he would have to spend the majority of his emotional energy dealing with people who could be divided into one of two categories; those who had a chip on their shoulder about him because he was the son of a former coven Head and those who wanted him to father their own future coven Heads. It was, in a word, exhausting.

But he'd promised his parents he would stick it out for a minimum of one month.

At least his membership with Vandersud came with the use of sports complex at a nearby university for magical studies which, he soon learned, was also the home of the aforementioned statue of a person engulfed in flames. The statue was not, in actuality, on fire. What appeared to be flames from a distance was actually artistically rendered feathers. According to the plaque at the base of the pedestal on which it stood, it was supposed to symbolize rebirth… or something.

Monstrous, bronze art installations aside, he decided to check out the facilities at the school and, hopefully, work himself into a state of physical exhaustion since the rest of him was already tired. He would probably sleep better that way since his last few attempts at getting a good night's rest in a strange bed were mostly unsuccessful. That was the plan, at least, but there was one small thing standing in his way; he couldn't find the entrance.

After traversing what, he assumed, was at least half the perimeter of the building, he had yet to find a door that was not an emergency exit. Kuon grumbled to himself in frustration, but continued on his path, checking behind him every so often to see if any other people were around so that he could potentially follow them to wherever the elusive entrance was located. Of course, it was during one of those distracted glances backwards that he rounded the corner and collided with another person.

Well, now there was _another_ small thing standing in his way.

Said small thing glared at him before taking two steps to the side and walking around him while muttering something to themselves about people not watching where they were going. He was reminded of a similar incident with a similarly-statured person only a couple days prior. The longer his mind ruminated on it, the more quickly it slotted the pieces together that this had to be the same person.

Considering his state of mental fatigue, it took all of his faculties to come to that conclusion, which meant that the rest of him was on auto-pilot. Which also meant that there was a disconnect between his mouth and his brain where one was moving faster than the other. And it wasn't his brain. Thus, his next words came out without any semblance of a filter.

"Oh, lovely, it's Cannonball Girl again."

* * *

 **YES, KUON ACTUALLY MADE A CAMEO TWO CHAPTERS AGO. He was just so vaguely described (intentionally) that most would've missed it. But if you caught it, give yourself two gold stars and a pat on the back.**

 **Also, I hope you're prepared for misunderstandings and more snarky banter and arguments because I have a whole warehouse full of them and you get to partake for the low, low price of FREE.**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	11. Found and Lost

**CHAPTER 11: FOUND AND LOST**

The sound of footsteps walking away behind him came to an abrupt stop.

"Ex _cuse_ me?!"

Well, perhaps if he just ignored her, she would go away. It worked for so many other things, why shouldn't it work on an irate young woman? Kuon mentally coached himself as if he were encountering a hostile wild animal; avoid eye contact and keep moving away.

"Are you seriously ignoring me right now?"

The footsteps started up again and they were moving towards him instead of away. Clearly, he'd made the wrong choice. Sighing, he turned around and met her glare with one of his own. He folded his arms across his chest and tried to look as disdainful as possible.

It was not very effective.

"Well, I _was_ until you decided to turn this into a confrontation," he frowned. "We could've just had a quick, unpleasant exchange and moved on with our lives, but _no_."

"I have never seen you before in my life," she walked closer towards him. "What gives you the right to assign me some weird nickname when you were the one who ran into _me_? It's not my fault you weren't paying attention."

His hands fell to his sides and his eyes rolled for all they were worth.

"I could say the same about you when you nearly knocked me over on my way out of Vandersud the other night."

She stopped her advance for just a moment as her mouth seemed to be battling to catch up with her brain. Kuon almost held back a smile but realized it wouldn't matter. He didn't know anything about this person and this was probably the most exciting thing he'd done all day.

"I-I didn't see you then," she said quickly, before moving forward again. "In my defense I was having a really bad day. As a matter of fact, I'm having _another_ bad day and here you are again! Is this what you do? Do you follow people around and make their bad days worse?"

His eyebrow rose all on its own as he continued to stare down at the petite ball of fury that ranted in front of him. All she had to do was start pulling on her own hair and he would have easily deemed her a raving lunatic. Her golden eyes were wide and wild above a crinkled nose and full lips bent into a scowl, her face was flushed and her chest heaved with each breath like she had just completed a marathon. He couldn't help but stare, really.

"I have better things to do than follow around immature people who push people aside in their haste and then throw out ridiculous accusations. As a matter of fact, one of those things is to continue on my way to the gym. Now, if you'll excuse me."

He stepped to one side to move around her and she followed him, blocking his path. Trying again, he stepped to the other side. Again, she mirrored his movements without looking away from him, her face still set with vexation. He abandoned all further attempts with a sigh and channeled his best withering, exasperated look.

She wasn't budging.

"You… you… UGH!" was all she managed to growl before putting one hand in her hair and tugging at her roots.

Well, raving lunatic confirmed.

The hand was then yanked from her head and placed on one hip while she pointed the other with a perfectly-aimed finger at his face. He tried to look disinterestedly at the finger when something electric ran from the tip of his nose clear through the soles of his feet. That only made him angrier.

"I don't know who you are or who you _think_ you are, but if we ever have the misfortune of meeting again, stay _out_ of my way!" her mouth, apparently, regained the ability to string words together.

"Likewise," he agreed through clenched teeth.

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

At long last, she stepped around him and began to take brisk strides to get as far away from him as possible. He was grateful for that. What he wasn't grateful for were the muttered comments about his attitude and the supposed lack of child-rearing skills of his parents while she did so. Shaking his head, he tried his best to dismiss any further thoughts regarding the woman and their unfortunate meeting.

His efforts lasted a solid twenty minutes, by his reckoning. He'd finally made it into the gym, upon realizing that if he'd simply turned right instead of left, he wouldn't have had to walk around three-quarters of the building. This led to a few minutes of grumbling to himself while he packed his belongings away in the locker room near the entrance. The grumbling stopped once he'd made it to the main area of the gym, lest it attract even more judgemental stares than it already did in the locker room. His eyes sought out a treadmill in a remote corner of the room and he quickly made his way over to it.

The thing about exercising is that it provides psychological benefits along with the whole fitness aspect. Regular physical activity causes the body to release endorphins. Endorphins trigger a response in the human body, the effects of which are likened to morphine; just without the risk of addiction. The euphoria experienced at the release of endorphins can reduce stress, feelings of depression, regulate sleep patterns and give a person a general positive outlook on life.

As such, while Kuon's feet pounded away at the treadmill, he was beginning to reap a few of those benefits. Sweat was just starting to bead along his brow as the irritation from his earlier interaction began to seem increasingly less significant. There really wasn't any point in stressing over the little things, was there? Not when he had to focus on surviving the remainder of his month in the city. He released a sigh as a pleasant burn began to spread through his calves with each stride. Yes, he certainly had far more important things to worry about than strangely irascible women who liked to yell at people for obstructing their paths. He just needed some exercise to help clear his mind.

However, now that his mind _was_ mostly cleared, it couldn't help but fixate on one, annoying thing; whoever that woman was, it was downright unfair how attractive she could be when she was angry.

At that thought, he immediately increased the difficulty level on the treadmill's console and started to run faster.

* * *

Seated on a red cushioned stool at the far end of the diner's serving counter, Kyoko was trying to drown her sorrows in fries that evening. Well, trying to the extent that one _could_ drown something intangible in something decidedly not liquid at all. She was in a foul mood that needed to be fed so she went for comfort food, completely forgetting that the situation causing her mood was also directly responsible for her knowledge of this restaurant in the first place. Well, at least until she had already sat down and placed her order.

Her mood was only bolstered by the fact that she was now in a place that surrounded her with memories of Ren. A quiet groan of despair left her as she looked down at the inadvisably large platter of deep-fried potato sticks that she ordered. She was two-thirds of the way through and her tongue felt as if it were wearing an overcoat of oil and salt that was tattered and two sizes too large. Her hand wasn't faring much better.

She probably should have used a fork like she had seen Ren do when he brought her to the same diner in which she now sat. He always raved about their fries that it threw her completely for a loop when she saw him dig into them with a fork. She half-expected to see him use both hands. The temptation to speak her thoughts out loud was strong, but she managed to hold her tongue. That had been such a tense day for both of them that even the idea of good-natured ribbing felt hollow and unwelcome.

At the very least, she understood the reason behind his methods as she wiped her hand for the twentieth time on a rapidly deteriorating napkin. She reached for another one from the nearby dispenser and placed it next to her plate.

Still, there was no denying that the fries were delicious. Kyoko couldn't prove that there was any magic involved in the production of this particular dish, but the fact that they continued to taste incredible even after they'd started to cool made her a little suspicious. After all, they were located quite close to a coven. However, her suspicions mattered little as she continued to fill her stomach with the absurdly flavorful fries from her absurdly large platter of them.

While her head reasoned that it would have been nicer to have less depressing memories associated with the diner, her stomach told her that Ren was absolutely correct when he told her about it.

"They make the best fries."

The sentence was enunciated so similarly and the voice nearly pitch perfect, her head whipped around faster than her eyes could follow as she sought out the source. Kyoko's heart fluttered with hope for the briefest moment before it promptly plummeted and hit the diner's tiled floor with a sickening splat once her eyes noticed the person sitting two seats down from her. The blond hair was the first thing she noticed, much to her dismay. It was haphazardly pushed back from his face and had the stringy appearance of being freshly washed. He was fully engrossed in his meal, one hand fisted around a sizeable burger while the other quickly loaded fries into his mouth with a fork between bites.

Her appetite promptly vanished and her eyes looked to the ceiling, a ghastly sigh of irritated disgust left her mouth.

"Is this part of my punishment too?" she asked the ceiling.

The ceiling, quite predictably, did not respond. Of course, that did not preclude someone else from answering in its stead. Or, rather, just answering in general regardless of their involvement.

"You know, I joked to myself that you were possibly unhinged when you, quite literally, ran into me earlier," the man two seats down from her spoke again and her eyes snapped from where they were staring upward to look at him "But, now that I see you talking to inanimate objects that are clearly not enchanted in any way, I'm beginning to think I wasn't too far off the mark on that."

He continued to eat after that and Kyoko growled, refusing to be the punchline to whatever joke the universe had decided to play on her.

"Funny, I recall commenting on your ability to show up whenever I'm having a bad day," she snipped. "Pretty sure _I_ wasn't far off the mark on that myself."

He only shrugged, shook his head and took another bite of his burger.

"Don't drag me into your personal drama just because you're going through a bad breakup. I have no desire to get involved."

This made Kyoko turn her entire body on the stool to face him. Her eyes narrowed and she put the full force of her terrible mood into her glare.

"How _dare_ you make such an assumption?! You have no right."

He shrugged again, "I'm not the one moping over a giant plate of fries while petting a scarf in my lap."

Her eyes darted downward to see her one hand—blissfully free of grease and salt—clutching Ren's crumpled scarf atop her thighs. The fabric sagged against her legs upon immediately releasing her grip. She frowned down at it first, then directed the frown at her accoster.

"Well, I guess you won't have to worry about it for much longer," she reached for where her purse hung under the counter and pulled several bills out of it before placing them next to her plate. "I'm leaving and taking myself and my 'personal drama' far away from you."

Kyoko rushed out of the restaurant in more than a huff, but slightly less than a tantrum. She was still adjusting her coat, having finally zipped it up after it flapped in the cold night air for over two blocks. The chattering in her teeth was finally slowing down, but the breeze was starting to sting both her nose and mouth.

That was right about when she realized she'd left the scarf behind.

She fretted where she stood for a good half minute, trying to decide if she should save face and keep walking back to her apartment or if she should double back and retrieve it. Turning this way and that, a whine escaped her mouth as she anguished over her decision. On one hand, she wasn't even supposed to have that scarf in the first place, so it should be no real loss to her. On the other, it was the only physical reminder she had left of Ren, thus making it irreplaceable.

Kyoko turned back towards the diner and started to jog.

Approaching the diner entrance at top speed, she skidded to a halt upon seeing her erstwhile partner in heated debate exit through the doors with her scarf wrapped once around his neck. She stopped him in his tracks by darting forward to stand in front of him and pointed an appalling finger, and face, at the item that now dangled about his shoulders.

"Th-thief! You _thief_!" she sputtered with not-at-all-concealed rage.

He looked down to where she was pointing before looking back at her, completely calm and undisturbed.

"Oh, do you like my new scarf? The pattern's a bit boring, but the colors really brings out my eyes, don't you think?"

She growled.

"You know that belongs to me."

"Well, as it seems we have developed a terrible habit of running into each other, I knew I hadn't seen the last of you." His lips turned upward on one side. "I'd return it of course, but the least I could do was get some sort of entertainment out of you constantly irritating me."

With one hand, he yanked the scarf off his neck and crumpled it into a ball. He held it out to her as if it were an old boot pulled up from the depths of a murky lake. However, when she carefully reached forward to take it, he pulled it out of her reach and dangled it over her head. Thus she made several attempts at jumping up to snatch it from him. Every attempt increased the volume of his laugh and the angry redness in her face.

She eventually gave up and made a rude gesture at him.

Now, for humans in general, a rude gesture normally consists of a body part (typically an extremity of some sort) extended in an angry and threatening manner. However, among witches, these gestures are a bit more complicated and nuanced. Kyoko's choice, in this instance, was to gesticulate as if she were hexing him while muttering the word ' _asinus'._ To the layperson, this would most likely be interpreted to mean that she was calling him an ass. But a witch would know that she was imitating a particular hex that was fairly mythical in nature and never confirmed to actually work. This hex was not only supposed to turn the person on whom it's focused into a donkey and place them in the middle of a wide open pasture surrounded by others of their kind. It also placed them in the estrus phase of said species' reproductive cycle.

It's not hard to extrapolate the full meaning of the gesture from there.

See? Nuance.

He whistled at this, sounding impressed, "Whipping out one of the dirtiest magical insults, are we? This must mean more to you than I thought."

"Just give me back my scarf."

Kyoko didn't even have the slightest inkling to add a 'please' to that directive. Either the blatant omission worked or he'd grown bored with her antics because he finally lowered his hand and unceremoniously dumped the pile of fabric into her outstretched hand. She breathed a sigh of relief once it was back in her possession and immediately wrapped it snugly around her face.

"You know, you seem to have excessive amounts of sass. I haven't yet decided if that's admirable or annoying."

Now, who told him to go and say _that_? Her ire was renewed and flared to life once more.

"My sass is _not_ excessive," she defended hotly. "And I couldn't care less about your opinion."

She stepped closer to him, seething as she stared him down—well, due to their difference in height she was technically staring up—from over the top of the scarf.

"My attitude bears no responsibility for the fact that _you_ are an asshole."

Kyoko chose to make her exit before he even had a chance to retort. Spinning swiftly on her heels, she took off in the direction from which she'd come. There was no point in engaging someone like that for any longer. The sooner she left, the sooner she could never see him again.

Well, hopefully.

Her apartment was like stepping into an oasis of warmth after being out in the frigid nighttime. She sought out her bathroom immediately after divesting herself of her outerwear as she was eager to balance out the general unpleasantness of the day with a long, hot soak in her tub. Smiling at the prospect of a luxurious indulgence, she waved one hand over her head and saw the faucet in her tub open and the drain plug engage. Now she just had to change into her favorite fluffy robe.

Kanae had given her a few sachets of the herbal bathing teas she'd been experimenting with selling at the shop. Unscrewing the lid from a small glass jar sitting on a shelf near the sink, she removed one of the sachets from the top and dropped it into the tub, which was now about halfway full. Upon contact with the water, wisps of a deep magenta color began swirling out from the sachet and blooming around it in the shape of a rose.

Kyoko smiled at the extra effort her friend put in adding an enchantment that created that effect. She was even more impressed by the fine, pearlescent glitter that was also starting to spread out from the sachet. Her entire bathroom smelled deliciously floral and she could have sworn that the steam rising from the water took on a pale pink hue. Sitting on the edge of the tub, she basked in the entire sensory experience as she waited for her bath to be ready.

She didn't have to wait long as her tub faucet automatically shut itself off, signaling it was time for her to get in. Removing her robe, she was about to dip her left foot in when, all along the water's edge, a plethora of pink rose, camelia and plumeria blooms popped up above the surface. The water itself was now a deep pink and Kyoko couldn't help the small giggle of surprise that left her lips at the sight.

Kanae was onto something with these. Something incredible.

An hour went by unbeknownst to her as she sat, contented, in her lavish bath. Only when she noticed the distinct puckering of her skin at the tips of her fingers, did she realize it was probably time to get out. She let the water drain while she dried her hair and pulled on an old t-shirt and shorts, resolving to scoop out the flowers and rinse out her tub once it was empty. The sachet was the first thing she reached for, which ended up being a smart move. As soon as she removed it from the tub, all of the flowers and glitter residue immediately disappeared along with it.

Clever, Kanae. Very clever.

With her cleanup time severely reduced, there was nothing left for her to do but curl up under the warm blankets on her bed. She did so without delay, gesturing around her room once to turn off all of the lights before her head hit the pillow. The lingering scent of the bathing tea still clung to her and she smiled, letting it help lull her to sleep.

Her sleep was fitful that night and she tossed and turned as a myriad of thoughts drifted in and out of her mind. However, a few made recurring visits, she noticed. Being that she was mostly asleep, they were very vague thoughts but they were persistent. Persistent and itchy like the tag on the inside of a sweater. It was something about speech patterns and forks and fries and 'excessive amounts of sass' and latent knowledge of physiological data, but it was so fuzzy and indistinct, her mind was having a hard time grasping it.

It took a few hours, but her brain finally caught on and she sat upright in her bed with a heaving breath.

"Oh..."

A deafening chant of 'idiot, idiot, idiot' was playing on repeat in her mind. Kyoko groaned in frustration and began rubbing her hands roughly against her cheeks before letting them flop onto her lap.

"Shit."

* * *

 **THE UPDATE YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR. The original version of this chapter, they actually made up and apologized to each other at the end. However, my brain had other plans one night and said "NO, MOAR CONFLICT" and I agreed with it. So, this version was born. Well, I hope you liked it and I hope it was worth the (has it really been 4 months?) wait.**

 **If you all want to try a weird Q &A thing, send me a question in a review and I'll pick a couple (or more, depending) and answer them in the next chapter's notes. Maybe this will be fun; maybe it will be terrible, but only one way to find out!**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	12. Research High and Low

**CHAPTER 12: RESEARCH HIGH AND LOW**

She was dressed in all black that day and piteous groans left her at regular intervals from where she had her head firmly pressed against the countertop. Kanae looked on, unamused for a few minutes before poking her in the side with a single finger. Kyoko pulled back, affronted, and looked at her friend (boss) as if she'd been betrayed.

"Are you almost done?"

Kyoko pouted, "No."

"Well, hurry it up so that you can do some actual work," she commanded. "You know, the kind I pay you for? I don't pay you to sit around and make noises. Honestly, I can't tell if you're in pain or mourning."

"Both," her employee supplied.

Kanae waited patiently for the tidal wave of blurted explanation she knew was incoming. Seconds elapsed in total silence and she stood there with her arms crossed. Of course Kyoko delivered without fail, drawing in a quick breath before the words spilled out of her mouth with both impressive speed and coherence.

"I messed up," she lamented upon finishing. "I messed up and ruined everything."

"Hold on, hold on," Kanae held up both hands. "Are you absolutely certain this is the same person?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

Kanae shook her head.

"Pretty sure is not one hundred percent sure."

Kyoko paused the worried wringing of hands that she'd subconsciously started at the beginning of her tale.

"What are you saying, Kanae?"

"I'm saying that there's a possibility that you have the wrong person," she suggested. "On the other hand, if it really is him and the two of you don't get along, then aren't you kind of absolved of trying to reverse the spell? Can't you just… leave him like that?"

"I can't just leave him like that," Kyoko parroted the words with an incredulous tone. "I made him that way and now I have even less of a chance of fixing anything."

"Then you should probably make sure you've got the right guy."

Kyoko's tongue clicked in irritation.

"And how do you propose I go about that? Hold him down and get a saliva sample?"

"Curses if I know," Kanae snapped, her patience wearing thin. "Don't you know someone else who can help you with that?"

She could see the exact minute Kyoko's protest died on her lips before it was spoken. Holding up one finger, she then proceeded to pull her phone out of her pocket and scroll through her list of contacts before selecting one to dial. After a few pleasantries, she heard Kyoko ask the person on the other end if they'd be able to meet up with her and gave them the address to the shop. She told them she'd 'hit a snag' and wanted some insight. Then she thanked them profusely before hanging up.

Before she could say anything, Kyoko lowered her finger immediately apologized.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't be doing this during work hours. I can call her back and ask to meet up with her later."

"Well, now I'm curious as to who this unnamed person is that you've sought out for enlightenment."

Okay, so maybe she was a little jealous that Kyoko had someone else she could call on when she was in a sticky situation.

"Oh, it's just Maria," Kyoko explained casually. "She planned on staying in town for a bit and said to call her if I had any questions or ran into any roadblocks."

Now, Kanae already knew from Kyoko's earlier tale that she'd crossed paths with Maria Takarada. However, she did not know that her friend (employee) also was granted unlimited access to said person whenever she so desired it.

"So you have Maria Takarada's phone number… just like that," she sighed in awe and confusion. "How is it that you're somehow able to involve yourself with famous and largely influential people as if you've been doing it all your life?"

At that, Kyoko laughed. It was the first time Kanae had heard her do so in a number of days.

"Well, you typically have to screw up on a rather grandiose scale."

For the next few hours, Kyoko abandoned her theatrics and settled into work. She dutifully helped each customer that came in, packed up delivery orders and restocked the shelves with the latest shipment of products stored in the back room. Kanae was also able to get some work done and spent most of her time with bookkeeping and scheduling deliveries for later in the week. However, she couldn't help but look up every time the front door opened. Her efforts were eventually rewarded when the door chimed and she looked to see Maria standing in the entrance to her shop in all her velvet and lace bedecked glory.

Maria Takarada was in her shop. _Her_ shop. The veritable master of curse magic. Maria. Takarada.

It took every last bit of willpower for Kanae to not fangirl over this fact.

She watched Kyoko walk over to Maria and greet her before making her way over to introduce herself and welcome their esteemed guest to her shop.

"We have a small break room in the back if you two need someplace quiet ," she offered.

"Oh no, my dear, that's not necessary," Maria smiled. "I've used a cloaking enchantment on myself. To everyone else, I look like another nameless face in the crowd. I'm only recognizable to people who are expecting me to be in a certain place at a certain time."

Kanae only just managed to suppress an impressed squeal.

"And Kyoko has told me so much about you. I was hoping you'd want to be a part of this discussion as well since you know her better than I. Your perspective might be valuable."

If a piano were to fall on her in that moment, Kanae would have died a happy woman. Still, she hid her glee and suggested that they gather by the counter towards the back of the store to talk. There, Kyoko delved into updating Maria on the latest installment in her comedy of errors. When she finished, Kanae wondered what words of wisdom the older woman would offer.

Honestly, she should've expected the laughter that erupted from Maria once Kyoko's story came to a close. Kyoko looked conflicted by the reaction, which Kanae understood. Were it her in the middle of this predicament, she would also have difficulty in finding the situation comical.

However, that didn't preclude it from being hilarious on its own merit.

"Kyoko, you seem to have a talent for unwittingly compounding your problems," Maria wiped a tear from her eye with one of the fingers on her hand that didn't have a ring on it. "I don't know how you do it."

"Maybe I'm cursed," Kyoko grumped.

"Oh definitely not," Maria protested. "I'd know if you were."

"I told her she should at least know for certain that he's the same person," Kanae interrupted, trying to keep the conversation on track and prevent Kyoko from spiraling any further. "But we're not sure how to accomplish that."

Maria nodded in agreement and pondered this for a few seconds before her eyes lit up.

"I think I have an idea. You said you first ran into him at Vandersud, right?" she waited for Kyoko to affirm before continuing. "Considering you also saw him on campus as well as in an area not far from the coven, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that he's involved with it in some way. It may take a few days to get it all set up, but I'll call Yuki today about temporarily using the coven's facilities for conducting some more of my research. That'll give me an opportunity to be on site in case our mystery man shows up again so we can learn what his story is."

"You-you can _do_ that?!" Kanae gaped.

"Of course I can, darling. I'm Maria Takarada," she flipped a mass of curly hair over her shoulder with a winning smile.

Nothing could stop the giddy giggle that escaped Kanae's mouth. Maria seemed to be expecting it and took it all in stride. Kyoko just stood there, wordlessly accepting the fact that this was now her life.

One thing was for sure, Maria was definitely a person anyone would want to have in their corner when things got rough. Of course, that also meant she was powerful enough that she was absolutely _not_ someone you wanted to cross. Ever.

Kanae decided then and there that she wanted to be just like her when she grew up.

* * *

Saying that Maria got things accomplished quickly would be the understatement of the century. Within a day, she had the permission of Vandersud's coven head to temporarily relocate her research and use their premises. Within three days, she had her basic equipment needs moved from her previous laboratory to the one designated to her by the coven. Twenty-four hours after that, she sent a self-taken photograph of her and a certain blond man to Kyoko's phone asking if this was the person for whom she was looking.

Maria had a wide smile as she pointed to the person beside her with one hand while her phone was held in the other. The poor man looked about as bewildered as she was upon her meeting Maria the second time. She almost felt bad for him.

Almost.

Once she confirmed that the person in the photo was, in fact, their mystery man, her phone immediately sprang to life with a loud ring. It was Maria, of course, wanting her to visit the coven so that she could be formally introduced. That was the last thing she wanted to do; right down there with taking out the trash in her kitchen that was, no doubt, disgusting with the putrefied remains of her dinner the night before. Kyoko tried to get out of it, saying that she couldn't leave while she was still on the clock at the shop.

"No need to worry about that," even Maria's laugh was authoritative. "I already discussed it with Kanae. You're free to go."

She looked over at Kanae, her phone still pressed to her ear and an expression of dismay and betrayal clearly evident on her face. Kanae's smile was so wide, it sent a shiver down her spine.

"If that's Maria, tell her you're leaving soon," she made a shooing motion with her hands as she spoke.

"But-"

"No buts, you still have a backfired spell to fix. Now, get on with it."

She could hear Maria still laughing from the earpiece of her phone even after she lowered it a bit in disbelief.

"I don't know who gave either of you the right to meddle in my life."

"In Kanae's case I'm assuming it's because she's your friend. In my case, well, my family name basically gives me carte blanche to meddle in anyone's life, especially if it's their love life. My great-great grandfather tried to get an official certificate stating as such once, but everyone refused."

Kyoko groaned, Maria's rambling had become commonplace by then, but it was no less exasperating.

"Gee, I wonder why."

There was much grumbling and muttered weak threats from Kyoko as she prepared herself to leave. She deliberately ignored the playful smile of her boss (the title of 'friend' was currently under probationary review) as she walked through the shop's entrance with slumped shoulders.

Vandersud was just as she remembered it and she was secretly thankful the attendant at the front desk was not the same person who was there the night she burst in, half-crazed, looking for Ren. When she introduced herself and explained she had an appointment with Ms. Takarada, she was ushered to a waiting room she'd never seen before that was markedly less showy than the one they used for the coven Head.

Once she'd somewhat relaxed into the blue leather loveseat, she was interrupted by the front desk attendant who handed her a small badge before disappearing as quietly as they'd arrived. She looked over the badge, turning it back and forth in her hand. Her name was clearly printed on the front along with all the other extraneous details she remembered from her old badge back during the 'days she cares not to mention.' However, this badge had a much longer expiration date than her old one by an order of almost two months.

Before she could voice her combined disbelief and confusion, Maria entered the room with a grin that almost bordered on predatory. Kyoko was, understandably wary.

"What's this for?" she asked, holding up the badge.

"Oh! They've given it to you already," Maria looked surprised yet pleased. "Good, I'll explain it to you in a bit but I believe there is someone you should meet first."

Kyoko's grumbling started anew.

"Considering how well the last two times went, I really, really don't think I should."

Maria made a dismissive noise before pulling Kyoko along by the arm.

She led them to a sizeable room through a large wooden door that matched the others lining the hallway through which they passed. Inside, the room was divided into three sections; one area looked like a small living room or den complete with comfortable chairs and a coffee table arranged alongside a window, another area was filled with a variety of both magical and mundane recording devices, the last section had a simple desk and some shelves. A second glance at the room told Kyoko that the seemingly comfortable-looking area was a cleverly disguised observation area. Her appraisal of the room was interrupted by the sound of someone approaching. She felt Maria's hand, still wrapped around her forearm, tighten its grip.

"Ah, there you are!" the older woman's voice was cheerful and welcoming. "Come over here, I have someone for you to meet."

Maria gestured for him to come closer and pulled a quietly resisting Kyoko to face him. Gesturing between the two of them, she smiled.

"Kuon, dear, this is Kyoko Mogami; a third-year student at LME who is one of the best and brightest in her class. And Kyoko, sweetie, this is Kuon Hizuri; he's on loan, so to speak, from another coven for the month."

Everything within Kyoko was telling her to run. Instead, she stood as if she were frozen to the spot, unable to move much less come up with anything resembling a proper verbal response. At that moment, Kuon took over (she was conflicted about her reflexive gratitude towards him for that) and pasted a smile of faux cordiality. Kyoko sneered and all traces of gratitude gone in an instant.

"We have, sorry to say, had the unfortunate displeasure of meeting before," she could tell he was having difficulty trying to speak without clenching his teeth. "We… didn't exactly see eye-to-eye."

Before Kyoko could ask if he was seriously making a remark about her height, Maria waved her hands between them.

"Be that as it may," she raised her voice, still smiling. "I will be requiring both of your help as you are the perfect candidates."

"Candidates for what?"

They asked the question in unison before glaring at each other.

"I know I've already featured it in my lectures and presentations but, the sad truth is that it's something I've only had limited experience with so I'm actually very eager for another chance to explore it. You'll have to excuse me as I'm extremely excited about this. I mean, this is a pretty amazing thing I've stumbled upon so I suppose it's warranted and, oh, I'm just _so_ pleased to have met you both. This is incredibly-"

She stopped upon hearing Kyoko's stern voice call her name.

"You're rambling again," she explained, ignoring Kuon's face as he gaped at her, most likely because of her frank treatment of one of the paragons of the magic-using community.

"Ah, sorry," he gaped further still at Maria's sheepish apology and Kyoko tried not to preen .

"Now, what exactly are we candidates for?"

The older woman brightened up again, her megawatt smile immediately making a reappearance.

"Well, for my research, of course."

* * *

 **DON'T MIND ME, I'M JUST GONNA LEAVE THIS HERE FOR YOU AND GO. Life is still crazy busy and this chapter was actually written over the course of probably a month as I had time to work on it. Hopefully it's still the quality you've come to expect and you all enjoyed it. Unfortunately,** _ **Anomalous**_ **takes so much more emotion to write that it's a hard one to work on when I can't give it my full attention.**

 **Things should be slowing down for me soon around the end of the month so I'm hoping I'll have time to get back on track with both of my stories. I'll see you all then!**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	13. Less Than Words

**CHAPTER 13: LESS THAN WORDS**

Maria's research into aural interactions was, in actuality, quite fascinating stuff. She'd discovered a way, through manipulation and combination of mundane recording devices and seeing stones, to capture auras on film so that they could be reviewed long after the subjects of study were dismissed. Kyoko remembered how impressed she was by the images Maria shared with the audience during the lecture she attended (well, at least she _remembered_ attending it). The subjects' faces were blurred, obviously, to retain their anonymity but all of that was overlooked in favor of the vividly rendered bands of color that surrounded each person. This was a groundbreaking method of presenting data that no one had tried before.

Kyoko was unable to deny just how brilliant it was. No, the real issue lay where Kyoko was at the mercy of Maria herself; not to mention the fact that she was now the unwitting and reluctant participant in said research. Though she'd been born several generations too late to meet the man in person, she was willing to bet a tidy sum of money that Lory Takarada's great-great granddaughter was an exact copy of him; right down to the blithesome meddling. Especially the medding.

Kanae may have considered her lucky for having befriended Maria, but she didn't have to deal with everything that came with that relationship. Case in point, Kanae was not being coerced (forced may be a more apropos term, but she was willing to be at least somewhat civil about it) into sitting across from the man who succeeded in trampling over her every nerve and have a _conversation._ That term was a misnomer as they accomplished nothing that remotely resembled a dialogue in any way. For the first few sessions, Maria would sit them in her observation room masquerading as a living room and tell them to 'just talk about whatever comes to mind.' That isn't to say that nothing came to her mind. In fact, many things did, but they were either complaints or strings of words that shouldn't be uttered in polite company; not that the company she in which she found herself was at all polite.

Kuon openly protested the situation which, in turn, aggravated her into starting a shouting match with him. They'd trade insults for as long as it suited them before blissful silence reigned between them once more.

And, each time they were dismissed, Maria had the biggest grin on her face and thanked them profusely for their help that day. Kyoko, understandably, began to grow suspicious of the older woman's motives.

By that token, she was not surprised when approximately one-and-a-half weeks passed in that manner before Maria approached them about altering their sessions. The slight tremble in the lace at the cuffs of her sleeves and around her collar betrayed her eagerness and Kyoko cast a wary eye upon them. Something was afoot and she was loathe to find out what it was.

"I want to switch things up a bit," she announced that day with way more excitement than the situation required.

"Meaning what exactly?," Kyoko finally asked after debating the pros and cons of opening her mouth at all.

Maria held out a small stack of three differently colored index cards in one perfectly manicured hand. Before she had a chance to look closer, Kuon reached out and swiped the cards, then proceeded to flip through them. Kyoko's groan and accompanying eyeroll was nearly reflexive by that point. When had he stepped back into the room without her noticing? He'd disappeared not long before after loudly informing everyone present that he was going to the restroom and asked if anyone needed anything. She knew he'd done it solely because she was there and she considered sending him her medical bills when she was eventually hospitalized with an elevated blood pressure.

"On each card is one conversational topic. I want you to pick two and use your time to talk with each other about them," she explained. "You can either decide between yourselves which topic gets omitted or, you can each take turns picking on your own."

The fact that Maria offered for them to 'take turns' came with dangerous connotations, Kyoko realized. It meant they would be doing this many more times. Kuon also seemed to catch on to the hidden message as well and she saw the frown on his face deepen. She knew he had the capacity to smile; really smile. And that was not only as Ren. She'd caught him laughing at something Maria said to him just prior to her entering the room before he quickly sobered up in her presence and the merry dimples in his cheeks disappeared. For some reason that knowledge did strange things to her heart… as well as her stomach.

"Well, I suppose today it's your choice since you've already snatched the cards away."

She couldn't stop the disdain that accompanied her words. Then again, she didn't really want to.

"Indeed it is," he agreed as he threw himself into the armchair he'd claimed in the observation room.

The shirt he wore underneath his opened button-down bore a simplistic graphic of a cat's face. It crumpled in on itself when he sat, giving it the appearance that it was making mocking faces at her. She couldn't deny that she was tempted to make them back. He thumbed through the index cards again before pulling one free from the stack and tossing it over his shoulder, where it fluttered to the ground behind him. The two remaining cards, he flung onto the coffee table with a snap of his wrist.

"So, where would you like to start?"

She leaned over in her seat when he gestured to the cards to get a better look at them. On the pink index card, the word 'family' was handwritten. On the blue one beside it, was the word 'politics.' Kyoko looked at him in exasperation.

"These are seriously the two you've chosen?"

He nodded once and she could already detect the first traces of mischief behind his eyes.

"Yep."

"Well, I hope Maria enjoys a recording filled with nothing but silence."

He deflated a little at that, and she celebrated the small victory in her head. Though they continued to play a ceaseless game of insult one-upmanship, this was one lure she was happy to allow to pass her by. It was one thing for them to take cheap shots at each other based on whatever material the other provided in their responses or facial expressions, but it was quite another to have their arguments manufactured for them.

"Oh, come on, I figured the politics one would at least be adequate fuel for one of our famous heated debates."

Kyoko snorted and crossed her arms over her chest.

"We don't need highly divisive topics of discussion for that."

"True, but it doesn't hurt to have a little helping hand," he pointed out.

Her sigh was long and loud. "Whatever, let's just get this over with."

"Is anyone even campaigning for an upcoming election right now?" he mused, tapping one finger against his armrest. "I don't live here so this is entirely lost on me anyway."

"Then why bother?"

Kuon sat back in his chair and just grinned, shaking his head. She rolled her eyes again.

"I think we've been over that bit already."

She smothered her face in her hands and tried not to scream.

"Fine," she said, her voice muffled.

"So, do you even follow politics at all?"

"Magical or mundane?" she asked in reply.

"Hey, I'm the one asking the questions here," his playful chiding earned him a glare. "Either one."

"Yes."

"Any candidates you're fond of or passionate about supporting?"

Kyoko's snort was louder than she'd meant for it to be.

"None of them. Next question."

He leaned forward and flicked the blue card off the table with one finger. She let out a dry laugh, watching it twirl in the air once before plummeting to the floor. The color of it clashed harshly with the muted gray, green and brown geometric patterned area rug beneath the table.

"Giving up already?"

Kuon's dismissive gesture was lazy and limp-wristed.

"Only because I'm more interested in learning about what kind of parents were responsible for raising a petulant child like you."

Oh, this was going to be good. He hadn't the slightest clue about the sizeable landmine he was heartbeats away from stepping on. Kyoko could hardly contain her glee and wondered if he was at all ready for what she was about to drop on him. He probably should've stretched first and maybe had a glass of water. Her hands itched to greedily rub themselves together, so she tucked them at her sides.

"Can't help you there," she sniffed. "I never knew my father and my mother left me in the care of a friend while she went off to pursue her career. I attended a public school in my home town and, once I was old enough to meet LME's age requirements for entry, I moved to the city and enrolled."

He straightened up in his seat and his eyes were suddenly downcast. The hands he'd rested so arrogantly on the armrests fell into his lap. He clasped and unclasped them over and over. The cat on his shirt had flattened out to reveal its standard wide-eyed stare, nearly matching that of its wearer. She couldn't help but bask in the fact that she'd made him uncomfortable simply by giving him an honest answer. She counted the seconds until he inevitably cleared his throat just to break the uneasy silence that choked the room.

She made it to fifteen.

"Well, uh… okay."

"Would you like to tell me about yours instead?"

The words left her mouth before she could give proper thought to the potential repercussions. Sure, she'd avoided sharing that story with Ren to spare them both the awkward conversation, but Kuon got no respite from it. Mostly because she knew the satisfaction she'd get from seeing him backpedal so fast he gave himself whiplash. And satisfied she was. So satisfied that she'd completely failed to notice that she left herself wide open to retaliation. Still, she was curious as to what he'd been hiding at that time as well. She watched him weigh his next words in silence, wondering if he was going to be as honest with her as she had been.

"My mom is very skilled with cultivating plants for use in various spells for our coven back home and my dad… heads it up."

He rushed so quickly through the last three words of his sentence that she almost missed them.

But she didn't.

"Your father is a coven Head?"

This time, his nod was all trepidation with none of the previous playfulness. She had no idea what the cause behind it was, but that wasn't about to stop her from pouncing on this juicy tidbit of information like weakened prey. He was clearly troubled by his admission and she latched on to his agitation, prepared to do an elaborate tap dance all over it.

"That explains _so_ much."

It really did, now that she thought about it. It was a lot harder to see when he was still Ren as he had to carry himself as someone who represented a highly respected coven. With all of that removed from the equation, he was just a man. A man wearing a shirt with a cat on it which, upon further consideration, she realized was the trademark of a fairly expensive brand of clothing.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?!"

He was immediately on his guard and he threw her a suspicious look. Kyoko just shrugged and mentally tightened the laces on her dancing shoes while considering her music choices.

"You have the air and hubris of someone who was born into privilege," she stated as if it was plainly obvious, which it was. "Really, I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner."

She found it odd when he didn't rise to her baiting words. Instead, he just sat there, frozen and silent. Tilting her head to the left, she studied him for a moment. His eyebrows had scrunched together, forming several furrows between them and his lips were set in a thin line. He looked confused.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

She wasn't about to ask if she'd said something wrong, so she went for the next best thing. It seemed to work and shook him out of his reverie.

"Your reaction just wasn't one I was expecting."

"And what _were_ you expecting?" came her cautious follow-up.

"Usually, when people find out who my father is, I can pinpoint the moment they switch from tolerating me to calculating how to leverage their relationship with me."

Kyoko's nose wrinkled in response to his words and her lips curled downwards.

"Gross."

"Then again, there are those who continue to dislike me due to their own envy of something I literally have no control over," he offered, openly pondering. "Maybe you fit better in that category."

Just when she was feeling somewhat sympathetic, he had to go and ruin it.

"I am _not_ envious of you just because your dad's a coven Head."

"He used to be the Head of this coven once," Kuon added.

Kyoko's mind ground to a halt for just a moment.

This was what Ren had kept from her. It caused her to realize why he'd grilled her so relentlessly about her intentions when they'd met in his office for the first time; why he'd fought so hard against the spell at first to avoid any sort of interaction with her at all. Most likely, it was also why he changed his name and appearance. He was running from the legacy of his father, but she couldn't understand why he went to the extremes he did as Ren. Especially since he seemed to be doing well enough as Kuon.

There was more to this story and she hated to admit that she wanted to know what it was. However, that was not the time to pursue it when he was already being cagey; albeit covering it up nicely with copious amounts of bravado. She would need to try a different approach at a later time. What's more she would probably have to be-curses forbid- _nice_ to him.

But not today.

"Ah, I thought maybe you just liked wearing some very strangely scented cologne," she pushed her nose high into the air. "Turns out it was just the stench of nepotism."

His eyes darkened in an instant, the roguish twinkle gone and replaced with nothing but foreboding. Kyoko's dancing had hit a very large nerve and now it was her turn to step heel-first into the fine mess she'd made. The room felt colder, at least to her, and a chill ran from the nape of her neck clear through to her toes.

"Kuon, I… I went too far. I didn't mean it."

"No one ever does," his reply was as cold as she felt.

"I'm sorry."

Her words came out quiet and half-mumbled and she squeezed her hands between her knees, looking again at the rug beneath her feet.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe you didn't mean it."

She looked up to see him rise from his chair and straighten his clothing out with slow deliberation before turning to her with a sneer.

"I mean, I really shouldn't have expected better from someone who grew up without a family."

Kyoko swallowed a lump the size of her shoe, but she looked him straight in the eye and didn't turn away. Her knees pressed harder against her hands and she could feel the bones of her knuckles digging into her flesh.

"I suppose I deserved that."

Kuon put both hands in his pockets and stared out the window at the setting sun that had started filling the room with oranges and reds.

"Yeah, well, now we're even."

He walked away from her and straight out of the room without a word of goodbye to anyone. She stared at the empty chair he'd vacated as her mind raced, quantifying exactly how badly she'd ruined everything with a two percent margin of error. Maria might as well have been a ghost approaching as she didn't notice until the woman stood right beside her, ring bedecked hands clasped across her stomach.

"That… could have gone better."

Kyoko groaned, "I'm sorry in advance if I ruined your study."

"Oh, quite the contrary," Maria started cheerfully before tempering her tone to match the mood in the room. "But that's not what's important right now. Right now I want to know if you want to continue with this."

"You're actually giving me a choice?"

Maria's smile was small and repentant. "I'm a meddler, not a monster."

She sighed, releasing her hands from their prison between her knees and slumped into the chair.

"What do you think I should do?"

"Statistically, I think you should stick with it, but that's just my opinion."

"Statistically?" Kyoko echoed, confused.

Maria winked, "Can't tell you more or it would invalidate the results of the study."

"I don't even know how I'd get him to talk to me again," her fingers curled into loose fists. "We're too good at riling each other up."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," the older woman countered.

"It isn't?"

"You respond instantly and emotionally to each other, neither of you holding back. When you argue or when you're just teasing each other, you both give it everything you've got. Do you know what that's called?"

Kyoko deliberated for a second before answering. "Insanity?"

Maria shook her head and she huffed out a breath.

"Chemistry."

With that, Maria left her to go check on her recordings from the day. Kyoko let her head fall to one side against the back of the chair and stared at nothing for several seconds. The soft chime from her phone brought her back to reality and she pulled it from her pocket. It was Kanae asking if she was available to help out at the shop after her time with Maria. Thankful for the offer of a distraction, she typed out a quick response before shoving the device back into her pocket and picking up her bag to leave.

It was on her way out of the observation room that she noticed where the third card had landed on the ground behind where Kuon sat. The green card lay face down and she bent down to pick it up, curious as to what he'd chosen to omit from their options that day. The print was small and neatly handwritten just like the others in the group. She stared at the letters for several seconds, suddenly inundated by the myriad of possible connotations for why this particular topic was discarded.

It said 'friends'.

* * *

 **YOU MUST BE AT LEAST THIS TALL TO RIDE THE EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER. Truth be told, I actually wrote half of this chapter while sitting in random airports on my way to and from my vacation. I may have also written a little during my vacation. Do not be like me and do not try this at home.**

 **xxxxx**

 **Also I forgot about the Q &A thing I wanted to try from two chapters ago, so I'm making amends now:**

 **Persephone Jinmi asked:** **Do you have a journal or something you keep story plot ideas in? Your stories are all so intricate and familiar yet completely AU.**

 **ANSWER: What little bits of plot I feel the need to keep track of, I have them stored in an online checklist of sorts through an app called Trello. Since I'm mostly a pantser, it's not much, but if I think of something that I want to include later on and I don't want to forget about it, I usually put it there.**

 **xxxxx**

 **Mutemuia asked:** **1\. Did Kuon improve his Japanese skills? I guess their 'talk' is in Japanese.**

 **2\. You wrote: "A place you haven't seen or visited since you were an infant." Does it mean that they met each other and that echo was deleted too? Or maybe not because that boy was not Ren but Kuon/Corn?**

 **ANSWER: 1) You know, I actually wrote this story never really thinking about their language barrier. Since they both know and practice magic and live and work within the magic communities, I kinda worked under the assumption that magic users were able to magically translate what others were saying. I'll have to think more on that for later.**

 **2) Well, as of this chapter, it's assumed that they didn't meet at that time as Kyoko explains that she never visited the city until she was older. Also, with their age difference, if he was an infant, she would not have been born yet. Honestly, not sure if or how I want to work that part of canon into the story since it might create some issues with the whole 'echoes' business. We'll see!**

 **xxxxx**

 **Shadowpotato77 asked: are you a dog or a cat person?**

 **ANSWER: Considering a number of my stories have a cat cameo of some sort(*cough cough* this one now too *cough*) in them, I'm going to have to definitively answer 'cat person'. I can't help it, I've been this way since I was a child. There is no hope of changing me now.**

 **This was fun! If you have any more questions, I'll be happy to answer them here in upcoming chapters!**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	14. Quit While You're Behind

**CHAPTER 14: QUIT WHILE YOU'RE BEHIND**

First it was the wall. Then the floor and, lastly, the window. She focused on everything but the person sitting across from her in order to avoid accidental awkward eye contact. She wondered if he was doing the same thing, but couldn't be sure since she would actually have to _look_ at him to find out. What she _was_ sure of was that he had to be wondering how Maria managed to convince him to come back and do this again. Mostly because she was wondering the same thing.

Considering the way their last interaction ended, she assumed he would've promptly packed up his things and returned back from whence he came. At the very least, he would have avoided all contact with her for however many days remained in his time in the city. Somehow, that wasn't the case and they both sat silent in a room full of tension that required one of those giant lumber mill saws to cut through it.

Maria Takarada was scarily adept at convincing anyone to do what she wanted. Kyoko was curious as to what she would have said to Kuon to get him back on board. Then again, Maria said very little to her and she still returned. Of course, her reasoning was that she wanted to at least apologize properly for saying something that transformed their banter from minor quips to hostile insults.

Was it naive of her to hope that his purpose for being there was the same? Probably. After all, she was the one who started it.

In the periphery of her vision, she could see three cards fanned out on the table in three new colors. She assumed he hadn't looked at them and stretched her arm and fingers as far as they would go to scoot them closer. Once she could pick them up properly, she took her time looking at each one.

Hate, read the pale orange card.

Guilt, said the butter yellow card.

Love, taunted the cheery lilac card.

She took the last card and put it face down on her corner of the table with swift precision and barely restrained herself from looking over to where she knew Maria was in the recording area with a raised eyebrow. She understood why Maria chose the words she had this time but what was up with her always throwing in one random word that never fit the theme of the others? Especially _that_ word.

Kyoko's mind conveniently disavowed all knowledge of Kanae's much earlier words to her about love and hate being more related than polar opposites. It wasn't the time for that then, anyhow. The other two topics were much more appropriate for her needs. Sliding the cards across the surface of the table towards him, her eyes finally met his.

"What I said about you yesterday was out of line and inappropriate. I'm sorry for that," she was still stretched across the table when she said it, knowing she wouldn't have the nerve if she waited until she sat upright again. "You don't have to accept my apology either. You're free to hate me forever for mocking you and your family without even knowing you."

Kuon took his time responding, choosing to pick up the cards and look at them before putting them back down and meeting her gaze once more.

"You know, my parents would always tell me 'hate is such a strong word' whenever I claimed to hate a certain food or hate going to the dentist and I never believed them," he began. "It wasn't until I learned about hating oneself that my belief changed."

"You… learned?"

"Try having no control over the fact that everyone gives you attention—both positive and negative—solely because of who your parents are and see if you don't hate yourself a little."

It sounded like he was trying to laugh it off and failing horribly and Kyoko's chest began to ache.

"Oh."

"What I said was out of line as well, you know."

Kyoko shook her head, dismissing his words. "You wouldn't have reacted that way if I hadn't chosen to say what I did."

"You seem so sure of that. How do you know?"

She was about to launch into an explanation when she stopped herself. How _did_ she know? Her opinion was based on a version of him that no longer existed. Ren wouldn't have stooped to her level, not that she'd ever say such things about him in the first place. In Kuon's case however, it was equally plausible that if she hadn't started the war of harsh words, he could've done so just as easily.

Of course, she couldn't tell him that.

"I thought you'd be the better person?"

His laugh was a proper one then.

"That's bullshit and you know it. We've done nothing but argue since the day we met and you're telling me that you believed _I'd_ be the better person?"

Unable to come up with a reasonable response, she shrugged.

"We've constantly made jabs at each other; it was only a matter of time. No one wins in a war of escalation," he pointed out.

"Why are you so insightful all of a sudden?"

He folded his arms and sat back in his chair, "Contrary to popular belief, I _can_ do more than just insult someone."

"I—I didn't…"

"I know," he assured her. "You aren't the only one who felt badly about what happened and I wondered whether or not I was antagonizing you because I felt I recognized someone like myself."

"I'm nothing like you."

That came out sounding more affronted than she'd intended and Kyoko silently swore to herself. To his credit, Kuon seemed to take it in stride.

"Well, not physically, but I think we're both unhappy with ourselves enough that we knew we could pick away at each other's insecurities as a distraction."

"I… did you minor in psychoanalysis or something?"

A grim smile pulled at his lips and he shook his head.

"No, my parents just paid for a very good therapist and, sometimes, I paid attention to what they had to say."

Well, that was an excruciatingly loaded answer. With what, one might ask? Kyoko hypothesized that it was probably gunpowder. She recalled having once expressed curiosity in finding out more about Kuon's background. But, between the card he tossed to the ground the day before and that statement, she was less than keen to dig any further. Something told her he wouldn't relinquish that information easily and she wouldn't know how to process what she found if he did.

Perhaps Kanae was right about leaving things the way they were after Ren's existence was erased. It was a saddening thought and one she believed she'd never consider, but she was considering it then.

"So, that's it, I guess? Do we agree to avoid each other until it's time for you to return home or something?"

"Aww, was one honest conversation too much for you?" he asked with a derisive snort.

"No," she grumbled. "I was just concerned that you'd cease functioning because you reached your empathic understanding quota for the month… or you're luring me into a trap."

Ah, that was the kind of teasing exchange she was used to with him. It was always so simple and comforting to ease into, like a favorite chair or warm blankets.

"Well, forgive me for wanting to spice things up a little," he feigned indignance with one hand on his chest and a tilt to his lips. "We could go with your idea, but good luck convincing _her_ on that."

He jerked his head in the direction of the recording area and Kyoko groaned in agreement. He had a point. The chances of them wriggling out of Maria's grasp were even thinner now that they'd somewhat mended fences.

"So, what, we just go along with it?"

"Oh, curses, no. Where's the fun in that?"

"... what are you suggesting then?"

"Since we like to argue, how about we do things our way?"

He touched the cards on the table again and lined them up side by side so they sat parallel to each other. Once he finished his new arrangement, he pointed one finger at each card in turn.

"In a fight between these two, who would win?"

* * *

In the end, they agreed to disagree even though he thought he made a decent argument for how Guilt would end up pulling Anger down with it into the depths of its despair, thus making it the victor. It was probably the strangest debate he'd participated in by far, but they both treated it seriously as if the outcome actually mattered. He even offered to play a fair game of cards against her to determine the winner when any of their further reasoning was swiftly rejected by the other. He went so far as to summon his deck of cards and offered them to her to shuffle. What he was not expecting was for her to reel backwards in her chair and stare wide-eyed at the deck as if he were holding a lit molotov cocktail that was seconds away from exploding.

Most people didn't have that sort of reaction to a deck of tarot cards. Curiosity? Absolutely. Wariness? Sure. Abject horror? Not so much.

He was watching her reactions more closely that day in general, more aware of the strange expressions that crossed her face at times. She was so concerned with not meeting his eyes when they first sat in the room that she never even noticed him studying the uneasy contemplation on her face. When she leaned forward to pick up the cards he'd already scanned when he sat down, he noticed the crease in her brow and the way she pursed her lips when she quickly set down the card he knew had 'love' written on it.

He wanted so badly to ask her about it, but the fact that she placed it face down clearly indicated that she had no desire for him to see it nor did she want to talk about it. Besides, he had his own reasons for eliminating one of the cards the day prior, hadn't he? To say nothing of her breezing through her less than sunny backstory.

So, they were both a little bit broken on the inside; and saying 'little' was an enormously kind understatement.

Upon placing the other two cards on the table and finally looking at him, he paid close attention to her eyes. She looked tired and nervous, which was understandable. But behind those two prevalent emotions, he saw traces of fear. That one had him stumped. He couldn't think of anything he'd done that would have caused her to be afraid of him. It wasn't until the apology spilled from her lips that he realized it; she was afraid he wouldn't accept.

Well, if he ever subconsciously wondered what she really thought of him before, he knew then. And that bothered him more than realizing Maria had been right.

Of course she was right. The older woman was persistent almost to the point of it being annoying. But, she knew what she was doing.

She, like many others wishing to get in his good graces, claimed to know his parents when they first met. With most people he would casually shrug it off but, for someone of Maria's fame to look at him in awe and remark on how he was the very duplicate of his father, it was a lot harder to dismiss. It was even harder when she eagerly shook his hand and smiled as if she were starstruck. His parents were nowhere near the same level of renown as she and yet she was the one treating him like a celebrity.

It was quite off-putting at first.

When she dragged him into her laboratory and requested that he allow her to study him alongside Kyoko for her research, he wondered then if it was all an act. Still, she never treated him with any less respect than she had before, even after she watched him and Kyoko effectively yell at each other for an hour. She would always visit him wherever he happened to be working afterwards to check up on him. Once, he told her with a teasing grin that he already had two parents and he wasn't in the market for a third. She quipped back with scoff saying that she didn't know what it was like living under the Hizuri name, but she was certain he wouldn't withstand the pressure of living under the Takarada name.

Thus, as expected, she quietly slipped into the laboratory he was in after his last, and most venomous dust-up, with Kyoko. He was thumbing through a stack of lab notes while two glass orbs holding a sample of the same species of plant floated in the air just behind him alongside a ticking egg-timer. The muffled sound of the door shutting prompted him to look up and notice her standing just to the left of it.

"If you're coming to see if I'm alright, it's not necessary," he looked back down at the notes as he spoke. "I'm over it."

"I figured you would be," she waved a hand. "I actually came here to ask you a question."

He sighed, still searching through the notes.

"I don't think me telling you 'no' is going to stop you, so ask away."

"Do you know why you do it? Why you egg her on like that?"

His hands froze mid-motion and he looked up at her with a flat stare that was soon followed by a shrug.

"I can't help it. She gets under my skin and I just react."

Maria smiled a smile that was all at once placating, admonishing and sly. He'd come to fear that smile. It was the same one she had the day she approached him about introducing him to someone who would, assumedly be helping with her research, only to become a part of said research. That smile always meant she was about to unleash something on him that he could neither predict nor defend against.

"Kuu and Julie would never have raised a liar for a son," she kept smiling as she spoke "At least not one that was so terrible at it."

"What are you talking about?"

"You like it," her smile became a knowing one, crinkling the corners of her eyes. "You genuinely enjoy arguing with her."

"I do not."

"Oh dear, more lies," she pouted at him. "And the poor boy doesn't even realize he's telling them."

His attempts to shake away the confusion proved fruitless and he gaped at Maria, as if searching for answers in the gold threading along the edges of her black velvet waistcoat.

"Why are you saying this? How could you possibly know I'm not telling the truth?"

"Because, when I am in the observation area, I _am_ observing," she clasped her hands low and leaned forward as she spoke. "I know what I've seen."

He scrutinized her then, with arms folded across his chest. The lab notes long forgotten on the table in front of him.

"And you've seen that I get a rise out verbal fisticuffs with Kyoko?"

She nodded, smiling once more. "I understand Kyoko's situation and why she fights back, But, I'm at a loss as to why you do the same and, if your reaction is anything to go by, you don't seem to know either."

"Does it matter?"

"Perhaps," she tilted her head from side to side, mulling her own words over. "Perhaps not. However, if you don't even know the reason, doesn't that make you want to find out?"

He continued to stare at her, perplexed by her suggestion. She'd asked simple enough questions and only gave him the smallest tidbits of information but she knew his curiosity was piqued. How did she do that so easily? Furthermore, why was she so invested in him and Kyoko and why did her investment somehow translate into his own?

Now she was causing him to ask himself even more questions. It was ridiculous. He wondered if she somehow managed to charm him when he wasn't paying attention. Well, cursing would probably be more accurate considering who he was dealing with.

"Off the record, she likes it too," Maria's voice broke through the cacophony of gears grinding away in his head.

"What?"

She moved towards the door instead of answering his question. Once she'd opened it and half stepped into the hallway and all he saw was curly hair, the teasing glint in her eyes and the glitter of the rings on the hand still holding the doorknob, she finally replied.

"You're not the only one enjoying the conflict."

Behind him, the timer went off with a shrill ring and shook in midair.

* * *

 **CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK, THAT MARIA: she's both sassy and unnaturally insightful and she does it with style. Lory would shed a tear of pride.**

 **Thank you to those who plied me with photos of adorable cats in attempts to conjure this latest chapter from within my brain. Not sure if it worked since correlation doesn't equal causation, but I'm grateful for the cat pics all the same! And, to those of you who wrote follow-up reviews of encouragement, thank you as well.**

 **And the Q &A continues!**

 **PersephoneJinmi asked:** _ **Dost thou enjoy Harry Potter? Or was there another inspiration for Hot Sorcerer Ren?**_

 **I hate to admit this to most people, but I never made it past the second book. Moreover, I've only seen the first, second and parts of the third and fourth movies. The majority of what I've learned outside of the bits I've read and watched have been through osmosis from my friends who are huge fans of those works. I both love and respect everyone in the Potter fandom, but I don't consider myself to be a part of it. But I do consider myself to be a Ravenclaw!**

 **All that said, my inspiration for who is now colloquially referred to as "Hot Sorceror Ren"—aside from the source material—would be mostly derived from Howl's Moving Castle (both the film and book). There is a smattering from other random sources like video games, other movies and stories, but that is probably the biggest one.**

 **That seems to be all the questions for now. I hope to see you all here again soon-ish!**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	15. Check(mate), Please!

**CHAPTER 15: CHECK(MATE), PLEASE!**

"I'm just saying, a stalemate is far better than a win!"

The cards that greeted them on the small coffee table that day were white, gray and red with the words 'win,' 'stalemate' and 'loss' written on them, respectively. They immediately agreed to remove the red card from the running. Neither of them saw the point in arguing in favor of loss, though Kyoko had to admit it would've made for an equally challenging debate.

At least Maria seemed to be done with throwing in a strange word that never fit the motif of the other two.

"In what world could that possibly be true?" Kuon challenged her with arms folded across his chest.

"Look, not everything requires a definitive winner and loser," Kyoko reasoned. "A stalemate means both sides did their absolute best and are evenly matched."

"Or one side made a mistake and gave away a crucial advantage."

"The same could be said for a win-loss situation too, you know."

It was around then that Kyoko noticed Maria was trying to get their attention while pointing at the clock on the wall. Apparently, their time for the day was up.

She licked her lips with adversarial glee and turned a taunting pout on Kuon, "It looks like we'll have to finish here today. Which is a shame, since that would mean we ended on a—"

"Don't you even _dare_ say it."

"Stalemate," she hissed in a stage whisper.

"No. No way," Kuon huffed in irritation, getting up from his chair. "My schedule is clear for the rest of the day, so I have plenty of time to bring this argument to its logical conclusion."

"Which would be?" She prompted.

"You admitting that I'm right."

Kyoko could only scoff and roll her eyes.

"You two are free to continue your discussion," Maria chimed in. "However, you'll have to find another place to do it. My daughter is visiting and I'm supposed to meet her in twenty minutes."

She watched Kuon's mouth twist into a thoughtful pout for almost a minute before it stretched out into a dangerous grin. She nearly reeled backwards at the sight of it when it was turned, full force, on her. Her first instinct was to protest, but she kept her mouth clamped shut and waited for his intentions to be revealed. Fortunately—or perhaps not—she didn't have to wait long.

"We could always go back to that diner around the corner. It'll be just like old times." He actually had the audacity to wink at her as he said it.

Now, the appropriate course of action in that moment would be to carefully assess the situation in which they'd both placed themselves. Of course, that's the exact opposite of what happened. Ever the dutiful slave to her own emotions, Kyoko ignored the opportunity for a snarky quip in favor of accepting the challenge placed before her.

"You're on."

His grin only widened.

"But," she was quick to add. "I get to pick the place."

Once Kuon nodded in agreement, the two of them hastily threw on their overcoats and left the room quipping back and forth without so much as a formal goodbye to Maria. They were so absorbed in their exchange that they completely missed the expression of the older woman. Had she been anyone else, she might have gaped in shock and awe. But, being who she was, the smug knowing smile stretched across her face was a given and not out of place at all.

The quiet, triumphant cackle that followed once the door closed behind the pair certainly wasn't either.

Kyoko chose a different restaurant that was only a few blocks further away for their battleground. It was tempting to go along with Kuon's suggestion mostly due to the close proximity, but she resisted for two main reasons. One, his irritating confidence triggered her stalwart contrarianism and she felt honor-bound to contradict him. And, two, she really didn't want to associate that particular diner with any more unpleasantness. Amazing fries, yes, but not so amazing memories.

The city was full of noise and activity, as it usually was at that time in the early evening. Cars rumbled past on their journey homeward, slowed by the volume of every other vehicle on the road. Music of all sorts could be heard coming from a variety of sources, backed by the percussive sound of hundreds of feet moving along the sidewalks. Of course, it could have been silent as the grave and neither of the two of them would have noticed as their argument continued during the walk to the restaurant and all the way through their drink and meal orders. It wasn't until they were several bites into their respective dinners that Kyoko finally looked at what they were doing with a critical eye. Well, at least, part of it. The other ridiculously obvious bit had not yet registered.

"Wait, why are we even doing this?"

"Because I've accepted the challenge of correcting your misguided notions," he offered, wrinkling his nose.

She shook her head. "No, I mean, what's the point of us continuing to argue when we were only prompted to do so by a meddling older witch and some index cards? Here we are, bickering as if our lives depended on it with only enough breaks in between to eat our food which, I might add, is rapidly cooling past the point of being enjoyable."

Kuon looked down at his mostly full plate. "Oh."

"This is about as…" She struggled to find an appropriate metaphor. "As fruitful as trying to explain to a group of normies that studying magic is nothing like it's described in that popular book series from decades ago."

His hand froze on it's way to his mouth with a forkful of food.

"Wait, people still believe that?!"

"Oh, you have _no_ idea how many times I've been asked why I don't wear robes or use a wand," she punctuated her sentence with a groan. "And don't even get me started on the whole duelling thing."

A sympathetic wince twisted his face while he chewed and swallowed.

"I'll admit, it's been some time since I've talked at length with anyone who wasn't a part of the magic community but I guess I shouldn't be surprised." He shrugged. "Those who lack the aptitude for magical studies pretty much just file it away in a box labelled 'mysterious but impressive-sounding jobs' right alongside astrophysics and brain surgery."

"Their heads would probably explode if they knew some of us actually specialize in working with astrophysicists _and_ brain surgeons."

"Good thing there's brain surgeons to help put them back together then."

Her snort soon transformed into full laughter that she tried to hide behind one hand. She caught him looking far too pleased with himself and it reminded her of the version of him she used to know. That sobered her up enough to truncate her last guffaw with a cough.

"So, does that mean you spend all of your time at your coven at home?"

"It's the unfortunate result of being born into a family that's only ever had careers in magic." He nodded with an over-dramatized, put-upon sigh. "There was a time when I had regular contact with the 'outside world' as it were but it … didn't end well."

Kyoko continued to eat and waited in silence for him to explain, but he said nothing further. The murmur of the conversations taking place around them, peppered intermittently with the crash of plates and the sizzle of searing meat every time the kitchen door opened into the dining room filled the space between until she gave up with a hollow chuckle.

"I feel like I could almost apply the opposite scenario to myself.

Kuon frowned in confusion. "But you're attending a university for magic studies."

"I am," she confirmed. "And I work part-time at a shop that sells magic supplies. I couldn't escape the magic community if I tried at this point; not that I'd want to. And yet, it seems like the more I assimilate myself into it, the more trouble I find myself in."

The man sitting across from her seemed to go through a series of false starts and stops as his mouth opened and then abruptly closed before any sound could come out. He eventually gave up with a shake of his head.

"I think I'm going to refrain from commenting on that since we both know exactly where it would lead and we'd be here all night."

She couldn't stop her lips from curling upward. "A wise decision."

"I thought so." His expression mirrored hers before he dug back into his plate. "We're better off saving it for whatever Maria subjects us to tomorrow."

"At least it's the last day."

It was the last day, wasn't it? The thought hadn't occurred to her until she actually spoke the words. Kyoko didn't know exactly what that meant for her, or for him for that matter. She didn't want to think about it either. Their entire situation got stranger by the day and she'd actively started resisting any attempts her brain made to process everything. It wasn't as if she'd forgotten what Maria told her that day in the cafeteria, though sometimes she wished she had. The real issue was that she couldn't fathom confessing any feelings to someone she knew so little about. Kuon wasn't the man she—

Now that she thought about it, she didn't know that much about Ren either. He'd offered her a chance for them to get better acquainted before making her decision but her mistrust of his feelings pushed her to bring things to a swift end rather than suggesting they wait a little longer. It was, as she told herself time and again, all her fault.

Before she could launch herself into a full spiral of despair, his voice brought her speeding train of thought to a screeching halt.

"And only a couple of days after that until I get to go back home."

She settled back into the flow of their conversation and let it distract her from her negative thoughts.

"I bet you can't wait."

"Well, yes and no," he admitted. "My parents promised I could blame them if I had an awful time here, but I'm not sure how to spin the fact that I got to be the research subject for a living legend into something bad."

"I think the fact that the research involved you insulting—and being insulted by—a complete stranger might work in your favor."

He laughed as his fork scraped a path through the vegetables on his plate. "You give my parents entirely too much credit. It's more likely that they'd ask to meet you."

She frowned. "To yell at me?"

"To meet the one person who continually tries to put their son in his place. I mean, you've met me; that's not an easy feat."

"I don't know if I should be offended that you said I only try." She wanted to sound resentful, but her efforts were corrupted.

"Oh, darling, one should _always_ strive to improve," he said in his best imitation of Maria's voice while flicking an imaginary lock of curly hair behind him. "Don't you agree?"

Maybe they were both tired, maybe they were both a little delirious from spending so much time around each other doing nothing but quarreling, but they both dissolved into a puddle of giggles. Breathing became just about as challenging as trying to keep food in her mouth between chortles. It got to the point that they couldn't look at each other and continue eating as the moment they locked eyes, the hysterics would begin anew.

They spent the rest of their dinner perfecting their impressions of Maria while giving each other constructive criticism that ranged anywhere from adding a lilt to their voice to the proper placement of their hands. Eventually, their plates were emptied and cleared from the table, their bills were settled and they were bundled back into their outerwear and leaving the restaurant.

Still riding the high of their hilarious antics (to them, at least), he asked if she was alright getting home by herself and she assured him she was. Then they bid each other the most amicable farewell in the history of their odd acquaintance. All that is to say that it wasn't until Kyoko had returned home, settled into the warmth of her bed and was just on the cusp of sleep that she finally, _finally_ realized it.

They'd literally argued their way into a date with each other.

Much as she wanted to deny it, it was a date. It ticked all of the generic boxes one usually finds under said heading. He'd suggested they get a meal together and she accepted. They talked and laughed and generally had a pleasant time. He even asked if she wanted him to walk her home.

It invaded her thoughts all through that night and into the following day when Maria greeted them with her usual measure of exuberance upon their arrival. But something was different. Kyoko, still distracted, couldn't put her finger on it at first and decided it was probably due to the older woman trading her usual sartorial palette of blacks, reds and violets for a daring shade of tarnished gold. It was a flattering choice, she had to admit, but something told her this wasn't exactly the answer she was looking for.

"I can't believe it's our last day together," Maria lamented, making a show of wiping away a non-existent tear. "I'm going to miss this time together with you two. Won't you?"

"Absolutely, there's nothing I've enjoyed nothing more in my time here than going tête-à-tête with Kyoko for the sake of science," Kuon joked in a deadpan fashion while somehow throwing in a salacious eyebrow waggle.

"It's not my fault you never tried to find anything more interesting to do," Kyoko grumbled, refusing to meet his eyes.

"I think this was plenty interesting on its own."

"I don't want to know what dictionary you got your definition of 'interesting' from."

Further witty exchanges were put on hold by the sound of Maria's laughter. She shook her head at the two of them while her shoulders trembled with mirth.

"We have work to do, darlings," she reminded them, missing the look Kyoko exchanged with Kuon and the muffled snort that followed. "You can flirt on your own time."

Once she successfully fought back the burning sensation in her cheeks, Kyoko admonished herself for being distracted earlier by the woman's fashion choices. The true reason behind the barely perceptible change in the witch's demeanor was finally revealed, much to the chagrin of her research subjects. While she was all smiles and excited explanations, the other two were mostly silent disbelief and betrayal. And it wasn't just because of her words. In her hands she held three more cards, but these cards were not new. Kyoko could see the traces of light creases and crinkles where the corners had begun to fold in on themselves.

The cards were blue, purple and red and the sight of them had Kyoko's stomach doing all manner of gymnastic maneuvers. She looked over at Kuon to see the color drained from his face. He stared, open-mouthed at the cards Maria held. His left hand hung limp, partially raised in the air in a sort of limbo as to whether or not it wanted to ask a question or point accusingly.

"Yes, these are the unused cards from the last three sessions," she confirmed, reading their expressions. "And, no, you will not be allowed to select one to discard this time."

A strangled noise left Kyoko and she remained frozen where she stood, every thought that had been swirling through her mind was blown clear away. Kuon, fortunately, was not immobilized by the threatening cards and took them from Maria without a word before stalking off. She was close behind him after two slow blinks seemed to free her from her affliction.

They sat in their usual chairs and he placed the cards on the table between them, letting the edges hit the surface with a snap. Kyoko wanted to look away, but knew it wouldn't make them truly disappear. The handwritten words of 'friends,' 'love' and 'loss' taunted her from where they lay on the table. So, she just stared at them with no idea where to begin.

Kuon must have noticed this and the overwhelming sense of dread she already felt was only compounded when the next words he spoke registered in her ears.

"Well, we can sit here all afternoon in silence or we can just rip the bandage off. So, I guess I'll go first," he began. "I lost my best friend several years ago and I'd convinced myself for a long time that his death was my fault."

* * *

 **OH, HEY, YOU'RE STILL HERE! While I do have several good excuses for my absence, they're not important right now. I'm back. I'm writing. And that's all that matters!**

 **Anyway, Happy New Year and best wishes for 2020! How are you all? Did you have a good holiday?**

 **I think I got one ask while I was away so here goes:**

 **Persephone Jinmi asked: What is your favorite type of cat?**

 **Is rescue cat a valid answer? If so, that's probably the best I can do on that one. I'm mostly an equal opportunity cat lover. Except for maybe when it comes to those sphynx cats… I have a hard enough time touching raw poultry. I don't know what I'd do if it actually moved and meowed at me.**

 **Also, that new manga chapter, yo! Never in my life have I had the pleasure and anguish to be both absurdly delighted as well as dreading whether or not the end is drawing near because, seriously, what am I going to do with my life once this is all over?**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	16. Choices Unmade

**CHAPTER 16: CHOICES UNMADE**

"You—you what?"

Kuon felt the sad smile pull his lips tight. The memory had only faded a little as time went by, but he was at least grateful that he could look back on it with a lot less blame and guilt than he did in the past. Of course, his blood still curdled and the hair on his neck still stood on end whenever he remembered the sound of the bat colliding with the back of his friend's head.

"I was young and I didn't know how to properly handle bullies," he paused to pull in a deep breath, "without resorting to violence."

This was the first time he'd ever had the courage to tell this story to someone who wasn't a licensed therapist. He'd skirted around his history quite a bit in the past days without revealing a whole lot, but there was something about it being the last day that made him feel a little freer. He couldn't explain why, but he felt like she needed to know. And he wanted to tell her.

"You were bullied?" she asked in a quiet voice and he nodded.

"Just because my parents are who they are doesn't mean I'm exempt from ridicule."

"I didn't mean—"

"I know you didn't," he assured her. "My knee-jerk defensiveness doesn't imply you were being insensitive. That one's entirely on me."

He'd realized too late that this wasn't the time for that. She was already on edge as it was from the way he chose to begin his story. He'd decided then that he didn't want to go into too much detail, mostly for his own sake but also for hers. There was nothing to be gained from her knowing all of that when a truncated version would be far less damaging. He loved bantering with her; not crippling her under the weight of his own personal trauma. They'd already worked past that.

"He didn't know magic, didn't have the knack for it, I guess," he continued. "We met in my early teens when he helped me get away from some kids who were trying to force me to eat the milkweed* growing in a nearby park."

She frowned, her eyes filled with concern, but nodded for him to continue.

"I learned how to hold my own and how to fight back from him." He tucked his hands under his legs, not knowing what else to do with them while he talked. "It's not like my parents didn't know what was going on. They always told me to tell them, or someone else, when it happened but I wanted to be able to take care of myself. And I got really good at it. I… started to like it."

He hadn't dared to look her in the eyes again, worried about what he'd see if he did. It took one more steadying breath for him to finally do so, only to find her looking elsewhere. He saw a pensive sadness that marred her features. He wondered what she was thinking in that moment.

"I started getting into more fights. Not less."

She didn't need to know how many more. She didn't need to know that he would actively seek them out when things got too quiet. She didn't need to know that much about the monster he used to be. For whatever reason, that mattered to him.

"My friend would help me out when he could, though I told him I'd rather handle it on my own." He paused to choose his next words carefully. "But, I wouldn't be sitting here today if he hadn't."

That caused her to finally look at him again. Her piercing eyes were wide with dread and she'd pulled her lips in on themselves in a taut grimace. She was bracing herself for what she knew was coming next. He almost didn't want to continue and spare her the burden.

"He took a hit that was meant for me." He pushed down the lump in his throat. "I never saw it coming, but he did."

He was expecting a gasp or some other form of audible reaction, but it never came. Instead, she pinched her eyes shut and her face twisted as if she were in pain. Her hands were fisted into tight balls and pressed hard against her thighs and he could tell she was trying her best to keep her breathing steady.

"And you believed it was your fault." She surprised him by saying the words so evenly despite her expression.

"Yeah," he breathed. "I blamed myself for a long time."

"What made you stop?"

He pondered that for a moment, trying to remember exactly when he made the choice to start forgiving himself and move on. His parents tried to get him to at least talk to someone about it for the longest while, but there was something he had to accept before he could do that.

"I guess I needed time to realize that I was wasting the life that was given to me and it was an insult to the person who sacrificed theirs just so I could have it."

"Did you ever consider becoming someone else and starting a new life somewhere?"

What a random question to ask. And yet, eerily applicable. There was no possible way that she could have known he'd thought about it. He wondered on what example she was basing her question. Did she know someone who had done that before? Had _she_ done that before?

"I—I did."

"What changed your mind?" she pressed.

"It just sounded so impractical, you know?" He didn't know where he was going with this, so he just spoke his thoughts out loud. "I mean, I'm sure I could've figured out how to do it easily enough, but it didn't make sense. Or, maybe, I was just too scared of leaving everything behind and took the coward's way out?"

Kyoko shook her head. "No, I think either choice would've required a great deal of courage."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He stared at the solemn expression she wore for far too long. There was so much she seemed to be hiding behind it and he hadn't the first clue as to what it might be. For all of her vehemence when they argued, she was surprisingly reticent about many of the details of her life. The conversation they had over dinner the night before was probably the biggest glimpse she'd ever given him.

"So, is that it?"

"Is that what?" she asked, sounding as if she was mentally somewhere else.

"Were there any other weirdly invasive questions you wanted to ask me?"

Her face colored. "I'm sorry."

"Don't," he waved off her apology, "I just hope you'll pay me the same courtesy during your turn."

"My turn?" she asked again in that same distracted voice.

"Yeah, we just finished revealing the tragic past I avoided talking about before. So, what's the story you weren't willing to tell?"

She ran a hand through her hair and exhaled loudly. "Right. My story."

Kuon waited patiently for her to begin. He would have denied it had anyone asked but, somewhere along the way, he stopped caring about the mystery of his mundane dreams and focused his interest towards Kyoko's strange behavior. The scarf thing was overlooked, at first, in favor of her overall prickliness when they met for the second time in the diner, but that was just the beginning. Then there was her reaction to the tarot deck he brought out, the index card she chose to exclude, her comments during last night's dinner and the very on-the-nose question she asked just minutes earlier. The most prominent thing was the faraway look she'd get on occasion. It wasn't always as a result of something he'd said. Sometimes it seemed as if it happened for no reason at all and she'd just start looking at nothing in particular while getting lost in thought.

He hoped he would get a few more puzzle pieces to fit together.

"I'd had a really bad day over a month ago." Her voice and her hands were shaking. "The person I was dating at the time turned out to be a colossal disappointment, to say the least."

So he _was_ right about the scarf. He had a feeling that it didn't originally belong to her based on the way she treated it as if it were priceless and irreplaceable. But, this person clearly hurt her in some way (a thought that made him peculiarly itchy). Why would she keep it?

"I decided that night that I was done with love. So I cast this spell..."

"But—"

"I know. I _know_. Yes, I was taught that love magic is dangerous," she interrupted him. "Believe me, I know. I wasn't thinking clearly and I've _more_ than paid for my mistakes."

"As in... you made more than one?"

She sighed. "Yes. I mistranslated the spell, thinking it was meant to avoid love. Instead, it was meant to find it."

"To find… love?"

Kyoko clasped her still shaking hands together. "True love."

An ache began to spread through his chest that he did his best to disregard. That seemed less important at the time when compared to how uncomfortable Kyoko looked. She couldn't sit still, shifting every few seconds in her chair. Her story had only just started and she was already a wreck. Sure, he wanted to know more but was it worth it to watch her suffer like this?

"Kyoko, you don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"No." She shook her head and rocked back and forth in her seat. "No, I have to try."

"Alright, so you did the spell." He tried to help her by leading her along. "Did it work?"

All he got by way of a reply was furious nodding while her eyes fixed themselves resolutely on the floor. He immediately withdrew. It was as if he was forcing it out of her and it felt wrong. So, he sat back and waited.

"It worked. It worked and he—" The words came out like helpless gasps. "A-and I—"

Nothing but shaky breaths left her for several seconds. Then, her head snapped up and she stared at him. No, that wasn't quite right. She stared _through_ him as if she could see past his chest, the chair and right on to whatever lay outside the wall behind him. Her hands reached up to brace against the arms of the chair and her fingers dug deep divots into the upholstery.

"I can't do this."

It came out barely louder than a whisper before she launched herself out of the chair and into a standing position before running out of the room.

* * *

 _*milkweed is beloved by Monarch Butterfly larvae, but is toxic to animals and humans if ingested in large quantities._

 **WHAT? TWO CHAPTERS AT ONCE?! MADNESS! ABSOLUTE MADNESS! Actually, the real madness is that I only barely proofed this chapter once before posting. Apologies for whatever errors you find. I'll go back through and fix them later. I mostly did this as a double release because the second of the two chapters was so short, but it needed to be its own chapter.**

 **Also, I hope you will all be happy to know that I've started working on the next chapter for Anomalous as well. No idea when it'll be ready, but it's been started at least!**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	17. That's How The Story Comes

**CHAPTER 17: THAT'S HOW THE STORY COMES**

Maria was out the door after shooting Kuon a look that she hoped he interpreted as 'don't go anywhere.' She made it just in time to see the faint glow of Kyoko's aura about to disappear from sight as she made haste down the stairs at the far end of the hallway. There was no time for second thoughts or considerations for the people in the other rooms along that hall, so she made sure to project her voice when she called out.

"Kyoko Mogami if you don't want me to curse you where you stand, you will stop right where you are!"

That was at least enough to get her to pause and look behind her. Maria turned the ring on her index finger around so that the gem faced her palm and rubbed her thumb along it. She absolutely hated transportation magic. She hated the sensation of motion sickness she got every time she tried it. It was magic that could not be sustained over long distances—yet, at least; some scientists were working towards making it viable. Some claimed that it got easier the more often it was done, but it took a great deal of focus and energy just to get it to work in the first place. It wasn't her specialty and she only dabbled in it for self-preservation reasons.

Well, desperate times and desperate measures and all that.

She appeared in front of Kyoko, two steps down from where the younger woman stood and braced one hand on the railing before she keeled over from the sudden bout of dizziness. This move worked in her favor as Kyoko immediately reached out both hands to grip her shoulders instead of her initial fear that she'd just continue down the stairs and bowl her over.

"What are you doing?" She looked up at Kyoko in disbelief. "This is your chance to set everything right!"

Kyoko was breathing hard from her mad dash, but she kept her lips pressed together in a thin line and looked around them for potential eavesdroppers.

"What happens if I don't do it?" She kept her voice low and quiet.

"What? Why are you—"

"No! Don't you see?" Kyoko's hands dropped from her shoulders to clutch one at her own chest while the other pointed back towards the room they just left. "I have no right to impose myself anywhere in his life. It doesn't matter who he is, he's still learning how to accept himself after what happened. He's still in pain. This isn't about me anymore! I refuse to interfere any further than I already have. You're the expert here, so tell me what happens if I don't do it!"

Maria just sighed. "I don't know."

"What?"

"I don't know!" She tried her best to both yell and whisper at the same time. "This hasn't exactly happened before. Love magic is imprecise, despite my great-great grandfather's attempts to give it some sort of rhyme and reason. But, I'm guessing that, if you accept the punishment, then things will probably stay just as they are now."

"Good."

"Really?!"

"Yes! Honestly, this is for the best isn't it? I was trying to avoid love in the first place," Kyoko's voice was heavy with the tears that began to fill her eyes. "Now that—Now that I know where it is, it'll just be that much easier to stay away from it."

Maria watched as the silent tears spilled onto her cheeks. No sobs followed them, only the slight shaking of her shoulders. The bright, cheery yellows of her normal aura had taken on a sickly pallor. Climbing up a few steps until they were both closer in height, she wrapped one arm around her.

"Kyoko, sweetheart, why are you doing this to yourself?"

"I'm not crying for myself, if that's what you're worried about."

Maria leaned away to look at her carefully. "Then… for him? Why?"

"Because he deserves to be happy," she lamented, "not have his life ruined by some girl who was bitter over the ending of an unfortunate relationship."

Maria frowned.

"Dear, you are not responsible for anyone else's happiness but your own," she soothed. "I think I get why you feel the way you do, but you don't need to make yourself miserable for the sake of someone else. Ren wouldn't want that and I don't think Kuon would either."

Wiping at her eyes with the back of one hand, Kyoko sniffled. She let the hand drop limply to her hip and leaned against Maria with a weary sigh.

"Do you know what happened the night Ren and I tried to reverse the spell?" she asked, her eyes unfocused as she looked at nothing in particular. "I kissed him. I kissed him and he cried because he knew he was going to lose me. Because I couldn't stop questioning whether or not the spell was responsible for his feelings. The only thing I'm good at is making him miserable. I'd rather be the miserable one and not have to share it."

"Alright," Maria rubbed her hand up and down Kyoko's arm in an attempt to comfort her. "It's alright. You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

Her aura shrunk inward and Kyoko hung her head. She was at her limit and Maria knew it was time to stop forcing her. It would benefit no one except herself and she couldn't be that selfish. Not at Kyoko's expense. Granted, she couldn't get the sight of meeting them after her lecture out of her head. She'd met couples married for decades that didn't have the kind of aural synchronicity she saw between them. It was what drew her attention from across the room, causing her to go over and greet them. She thought it was funny how, as much as she tried to distance herself from the legacy of her great-great grandfather, there was no escaping the genetic predisposition to matchmaking.

"No," Kyoko shook her head, finally voicing her disagreement. "No, you were right before. I need to do this. I've taken the easy way out multiple times because I was afraid. I shouldn't—I _can't_ do it again."

"Well, if you're sure…" Maria hesitated for a moment at the young woman's sudden surge of conviction.

"I'm sure." Kyoko nodded. "I don't know if I'll tell him everything, but he at least deserves to know most of the story. I do have one small request, however."

"What?"

Her smile was wobbly. "Please don't record this."

The recording wasn't actually necessary anyway. Not for her research, at least. She'd invalidated the data she collected on them days ago because of her meddling. The main reason she did any of this was for their sakes (and, perhaps, a little for her own satisfaction). So, she would take what she could get. Maria pulled her closer so she could wrap both arms around her in a tight hug.

"Absolutely."

Kuon was standing near the door when they both returned. The look of surprise on his face told Maria that he didn't believe she would be successful in getting Kyoko to return. She wanted to scoff and shake her head, but it wasn't the time for that.

Explaining that she was only staying for moral support, she left the two of them by the entrance and went to sit in their usual spot at the coffee table. It was, she hoped, a more comfortable setup for Kyoko. She'd given her the freedom to escape again if she wanted to. Besides, nothing would be said if she stayed hovering awkwardly nearby.

Of course, that didn't mean she was not going to eavesdrop.

If she could create sound barriers to keep away prying ears, it stood to reason that she also knew how to be one of those prying ears herself. It worked in a very similar fashion to holding up one's cellphone to find an adequate signal in a deadzone. One had to angle oneself just right and focus on the desired source of sound. Otherwise, the spell would just amplify every sound in the room, thus assaulting the eardrums with a cacophony of noise. The added challenge was that she also wanted to be able to sneak peeks at them.

By the time she'd situated herself just right, she missed out on the first part of their conversation.

"...and he showed up at the shop where I work the day after I did the spell," she heard Kyoko add a humorless laugh. "We didn't get along at first. He was angry about having feelings towards me that he couldn't control and I was mad at myself for making a mistake that caused the exact opposite of what I wanted."

Kuon said nothing and waited for her to continue. Maria watched his aura swirl around him, cycling through every visible shade of blue. Kyoko's own pale yellow stayed tight and protective around her body.

"He gave me a week to figure out how to undo the spell."

"A week? That's it?"

She nodded once. "He was the Head of a coven and he said that his unwarranted obsession with me was too distracting for him to properly do his job."

"Asshole move," Kuon grumbled. "But, please, continue."

Kyoko's voice sounded pained. Maria couldn't imagine how hard it was on her to talk about Ren to… well… himself.

"I thought so too," she continued. "I demanded that he help me and he actually did without question or complaint. But about halfway through the week he... changed his mind."

"He stopped helping you?" Kuon sounded almost insulted on her behalf.

"No, we'd already discovered how to reverse the spell," Kyoko was shaking her head. "We spent so much time around each other that, I guess, he began to think that his feelings weren't superficial or an inconvenience anymore. So, he didn't want to go through with it."

"And you didn't feel the same way," he concluded.

"How could I?" She asked. "We barely knew each other for more than a few days."

Kuon seemed to consider her question for a moment. "So, what happened after that?"

"He asked to wait until the week was over before undoing the spell, if we still wanted to. He swore he'd go along with whatever I decided, but he wanted us both to have a chance to learn why the spell chose us for each other in the first place."

"That… actually makes some sense," he mused aloud. "But I'm guessing you did it anyway."

Kyoko could only nod, her aura had shrunk to the point that it was barely more than a thin outline around her. Even Kuon's began to diminish in size while he mulled over her words in silence.

"I'm afraid to ask if that decision is the reason you've been referring to him in the past tense."

She only nodded again, refusing to look at him while she did so. Maria couldn't help but stare at the two of them, captivated. Kyoko's face had crumpled in on itself, indicating the hard battle she was fighting against shedding any further tears. Kuon was leaning forward with his arms bent towards her, ever so slightly, as if he were preparing to catch her in the event that she keeled over. And he froze like that when Kyoko's restraint finally broke.

He stood there, seeming to weigh the pros and cons in his head before he gave up and pulled Kyoko's shaking form towards him, gently cradling her between his arms. He looked up towards the ceiling and sighed and Maria wondered if he was cursing himself for even encouraging her to tell her story.

She wanted so badly to reassure them both, but knew there was no way she could possibly intervene. So, she watched from a distance as their auras ebbed and flowed around each other. It was something she'd seen before during their previous sessions but, for just a moment, she saw a hint of something she hadn't seen since Kuon was still Ren. The flash was so quick, she almost thought she'd imagined it. Despite their physical closeness, the two colors that surrounded them never really touched. But, for the tiniest instant, they had and—

Yes! It happened again!

Pretty much anyone who has experience with paints, markers, crayons and the like would be able to tell you that mixing blue and yellow together made green. And, conversely, when combining colored light, the end result would be white. In terms of aural coloring, the same additive principal was also applicable for the most part. Except in this case.

When their auras merged, the most stunning shade of violet was produced. It was as if whatever they were together was not greater than the sum of its parts, but something different entirely. She wished she could ask Lory about it; if this was what total compatibility looked like. What she knew of it only existed in the meandering writings she'd read in the journals of her great-great grandfather that were kept in her family's archives.

She remembered turning her nose up at it in her youth. The idea had seemed so completely farfetched. Well, it certainly seemed less so at that moment. The color was so mesmerizing that she couldn't look away, for fear that she'd miss some revelational detail. She summoned a notepad and pen so she could take notes on the intensity of each merging event. Her furious writing was interrupted by the sound of a sharp intake of breath splitting through the quiet in the room.

Kyoko had torn herself away from Kuon and the two of them stood more than an arm's length apart. Both auras had receded significantly, particularly where they stood any likelihood of touching. She'd wrapped her arms tightly around herself while he'd jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Neither of them dared to look at the other.

"I know there's no point in offering any platitudes about your loss," Kuon murmured. "It's not like it'll bring them back."

Maria didn't have to wonder for long whether or not Kyoko would correct his assumption.

"Oh, no." She looked at him then, her eyes wide and palms raised in refutation. "He's still alive. He's just… not the same."

She explained to him an abbreviated version of what Maria told her when they met again on campus. Of course, she conveniently left out the part about having to confess her true feelings to set things right. Maria was curious as to whether would pick up on it or if Kyoko's frazzled state was enough of a distraction.

"So, is there no way to find him and fix that?"

Well, well, someone needed to give that boy a medal for deductive logic. Kyoko made a quiet, affirming sound.

"I know who he is and," her gasping breaths came again and Maria wished she could do more besides silently encouraging her from where she sat. "I've met him. His life now is pretty good. Maybe even better than it was, I'd argue. I don't—I don't want to interfere again. If I'm the only one who has to carry the memory of that time, that's... fine."

"Kyoko you—" He looked as if he changed his mind about what he wanted to say. "You actually had feelings for him too, didn't you? That's why you won't do it."

Maria had to stop herself from standing up and applauding. Kyoko, on the other hand, had been moving closer to the door bit by bit after she pulled herself away from him. By the time Kuon hit her with that question, she was standing in front of the doorknob. Despite their distance, Maria could see his waves of blues reaching out towards her while her yellows retreated as far as they could without disappearing entirely.

"I'm sorry," Kyoko shook her head. "I can't tell you that."

And she was gone.

Maria got up from her seat and approached Kuon, resting a gentle hand on his arm. He looked down at her and frowned. His eyes had none of their usual glitter and looked dull and hollow.

"Why did you force her to tell me that?"

"I didn't," she answered, shaking her head. "She insisted that she see it through to the end."

After patting his arm twice, she made her way over to the door to leave as well. She had every intention of saying nothing further, respecting Kyoko's wish to omit part of her story. However, he'd proven himself, time and again, to be far more perceptive than he let on. So, she couldn't help passing along the smallest clue.

"It was important to her that you knew what happened."

Her accompanying smile was more for herself than it was for him. She wished him a safe journey back home and left him an open invitation to call upon her anytime in the future. He thanked her, but it sounded more reflexive than genuine. Kuon appeared to be deep in thought and the frown on his face had only deepened, creating distinct furrows in his brow. Maria didn't have to see the imaginary gears turning in his head, the pulsing of his aura around him told her everything she needed to know.

By the time she'd descended the stairs and was on her way out of the building, she'd muttered several apologies to both Kyoko and her great-great grandfather.

* * *

It took only a day to disassemble her research equipment so that it could be packed up and sent back to her home coven. In that time, she saw neither Kyoko nor Kuon as the former was busy avoiding the coven like the plague and keeping herself busy between work and school. The latter was less busy, as he had no further responsibilities at the coven, so he avoided it as well. She tried to check in on him at his apartment the morning before he was due to leave, but was informed that he had already gone.

Maria couldn't deny that it saddened her a bit, but she had to be content with knowing that she did all she could—though that didn't necessarily mean that she was content at all. Regardless, she wasn't going to mention it to Kyoko. Her purpose for going to the small shop that afternoon was to thank the young woman. She also wanted to offer her endorsement to publish a paper about what she and Ren found about her great-great grandfather's spells. Only if she wanted to, of course. It would be a considerable jump-start to her career upon graduation and it seemed like the least she could do after coercing her into being a lab rat for a month.

She entered the shop to find the person in question counting out candles at the register before placing them in a box she had on the counter beside her. Kyoko looked up, no doubt a generic greeting at the tip of her tongue before she realized who had walked in. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pinched themselves together and Maria couldn't help the nervous laugh that escaped her.

Before she could open her mouth to say anything—she hadn't yet decided if it was going to be an apology or a poor attempt at a joke—someone else came in behind her. Instinctively, she stepped to one side to let them pass.

A candle rolled off the counter and clattered onto the floor, causing her eyes to shift from where they were about to look at the newcomer and focus back on Kyoko. One hand hovered in the air, her fingers still curled in on themselves indicating that the candle on the floor was the one she'd just been holding. The other pressed itself against her mouth and nose while her widened eyes stared over the top. A plethora of golden yellows swirled about her in confusion and shock.

Maria followed her gaze to the land on the person who had entered their midst. He looked tired, with tawny hair askew and dark circles beneath glassy green eyes as if he hadn't slept in at least a day if not more. But the azure that surrounded him was strong and steady .

She heard Kyoko trying to turn the monosyllabic sounds coming out of her into actual words when he beat her to it.

"I came to get my scarf back."

* * *

 **NO ONE:**

 **ABSOLUTELY NO ONE:**

 **ME: HEY, YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT MARIA SEES WHEN SHE LOOKS AT KYOKO AND REN'S AURAS? TOO BAD, YOU'RE GONNA FIND OUT ANYWAY.**

 **Anomalous chapter still in the works and about halfway done! Oh, and Happy Vain Day!**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	18. We Spy With Our Aural Eyes

**CHAPTER 18: We Spy With Our Aural Eyes**

The scene was like this when Kanae returned from the storage room: Kyoko and a very tall, blond man were facing off in the middle of the store while Maria stood to one side with the giddiest expression of unadulterated glee on her face. Based on the few descriptions Kyoko shared with her in the past, she guessed the man was Kuon, her lost—and subsequently found—well, whatever he was. She had more than a few guesses as to her friend's true feelings towards him but kept her theories to herself. Kyoko's life had become complicated enough without her trying to add labels to things.

It, apparently, had also become so complicated that she forgot how words worked.

"You—"

He seemed to be waiting for her to finish her thought.

"You…!"

The waiting continued and he'd folded his arms across his chest while struggling, and subsequently losing, at keeping a smile from stretching his lips.

"You were supposed to leave this morning," the words finally tumbled out with awkward pauses in between. "Why are you still here?"

"I think I've already established that," Kuon extended an open hand, beckoning for her to fill it with the item he requested. "My scarf, please."

An indignant grunt came from Kyoko. "It's not your scarf."

"Well, not anymore it's not. But it was once, wasn't it?"

"How do you—" She gasped and took two steps backwards, her back colliding with the counter behind her, but she stayed where she was as if she refused to get any closer to him. "You know but... you don't remember."

Kanae scrunched her face in confusion. Was that even possible? It conflicted with her own memories and what she knew of the whole situation. If he knew about what happened between the two of them, shouldn't she have some recollection of who he was? Is? From where she stood towards the back, Kanae noticed Maria's rapturous smile go into immediate hibernation and guessed that Kyoko was glaring at her accusingly. Maria's eyes darted between the two of them, opening her mouth to defend herself when Kuon shook his head.

"She didn't tell me anything I couldn't have figured out on my own."

"But it wasn't supposed to— I mean, you weren't— I don't understand!" Kyoko gave up with a wail.

Kuon withdrew his hand, letting it hang at his side, and took a half step forward. "Before I came here a month ago, I'd been having these dreams."

Maria had started inching her way away from the two of them and stopped in her tracks when this new tidbit of information reached her ears. She turned to stare at the back of Kuon's head from where she now stood by the door. Kanae imagined the look on her face was probably the same as the wide-eyed expression the older woman wore.

"They were the most boring dreams you could imagine," he continued with an dry chuckle. "I was always alone in them and never doing anything interesting."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because they always took place in this city, either in the coven or some apartment I don't recognize," he explained "Because that's probably all I had left after we erased the echoes of my other life."

Kyoko didn't answer, but the way her shoulders and elbows made small, squirmy motions clearly showed how uncomfortable she was. Kanae was eighty percent of the way to convincing herself that she should intervene.

"Please, Kyoko," he begged with soft eyes and an even softer voice. "Let me remember the rest of it."

"No."

"Please—"

"No!" Kyoko shouted it the second time, her tiny frame trembling. "I already made up my mind, remember? This is the burden I've chosen to carry alone."

Kuon scoffed. "So you're just making decisions for me now?"

"No, I made that decision for myself," her words were saturated with irritation. "You just happened to get involved because _someone_ couldn't keep their meddling hands to themselves."

By then, Kanae was already several steps away from physically breaking up the argument. But, when she looked over at Maria, the woman shook her head once before intervening herself.

"Okay, time out, you two." Maria held up her hands. "How about we give you a little privacy to sort yourselves out, hm?"

Kanae watched her run a hand over the surface of the shop's door, the sign flipped itself from 'Open' to 'Closed' and the lock engaged. Facing the pair again, she raised her hands and traced an arc through the air. Maria then walked away to stand beside Kanae with a grin. Kyoko and Kuon both looked at her in confusion and she simply gestured towards them in a shooing motion while mouthing the words 'go on.'

"They can't hear us?" Kanae asked, looking between Kyoko and Maria.

Maria nodded. "And we can't hear them."

"We still get to watch, right?"

"Oh, _absolutely_ ," Maria's mouth stretched into a wide, devious grin. "Watching is the best part."

"Are you sure we don't need to separate them?" Kanae kept looking back, eying Kuon warily while Maria ushered her towards the storage room. "Kyoko looks a little anxious around him."

"Don't mind them, darling," Maria dismissed her question with an airy sigh. "They're just madly in love with each other."

While it looked as if they'd retreated to the back room to leave Kyoko and Kuon alone—something that should have seemed suspect to the two people remaining, but they were too caught up in themselves to notice—the truth of the matter was that they'd fallen back so they could spy from a more discreet location. There was no use of fancy magical means to do so. The door to the storage room was merely pulled in, giving the appearance of being closed. Only, it was mostly closed and two pairs of eyes peered out from the crack that remained between it and the door jamb. Being the taller of the two of them, Kanae peered out from the upper part while Maria bent over to look through the lower. Because sometimes the basic approach works just fine.

"I wish I could see Kyoko's face," Kanae lamented with a concerned frown.

Maria laughed. "What kind of spy are you? Use the reflection in the front window."

The view was slightly warped due to the lighting and the angle, but Maria was right. She could see the myriad of expressions that crossed Kyoko's face as she and Kuon talked. At first, there was agitation paired with exaggerated gestures. Her arms would flail wildly and then wrap protectively around herself. Kanae tried to translate the shapes her lips made into actual words but could only make out the word 'scare' (or was it 'scared'?). And that was mostly because Kyoko screamed it at full force, causing the man standing across from her to flinch. Eventually, the pace of the conversation did slow down and her movements were less frantic, her face more pensive.

"Oh, he's very good," Maria murmured from below her.

"What?" Kanae demanded. "What is he doing?"

"She's reconsidering. Can't you see it?"

Kanae answered only with a noise of utter bewilderment.

"Right, I have a slight advantage I guess." She smiled sheepishly up at Kanae when she directed a questioning look her way. "I can see their auras."

"Ah."

"But you can sort of see it on his face too," she added. "I mean, who can resist puppy eyes like those?"

She had a point. The rounded, beseeching eyes the man was sporting could nearly get a starving person to give up their last morsel of bread. It worked in his favor that he wasn't also pouting at the same time as there was a fine line between just enough and laying it on way too thick. He must have recognized that distinction and opted for the former over the latter. She could appreciate that.

What Kanae found herself struggling with was why she had such a hard time keeping her eyes off Kuon's face after that. Sure, he was unfairly attractive even despite his disheveled state, but it was something else. She became overwhelmed by the sensation that she recognized him from somewhere. It was something in the far reaches of her mind that was just out of her grasp. Her nails dug into the door as she wracked her brain.

"Why does he look so familiar?" she whispered to herself.

Being as close as she was, Maria overheard her. "Because you're starting to remember."

"What?"

"His echoes are slowly returning." Maria looked up from her crouched position. "She must be close to admitting how she feels about him."

It happened so seamlessly and naturally that Kanae was left baffled. She could have sworn that she knew nothing about the man mere minutes before, other than his questionable and tenuous relationship with her friend. And yet, she also had knowledge of him from a time long beyond the past month. She knew his face, his voice, his status in the community. Most of all, she knew exactly how he felt about Kyoko as well as how she felt about him, despite the young woman's attempts to convince her otherwise. Memories of cracking wise while sitting atop a horrifically expensive sofa next to Vandersud's second-in-command (or was it first now?) flooded her mind. They overlapped and intertwined with memories of seeing Kyoko enter the shop after spending hours researching at the coven, a soft smile on her lips and the blush of a newly blossomed rose on her cheeks.

A quiet cheer from Maria put a halt on her musings. Her eyes focused once more on the couple—because that's what they were, weren't they? She didn't know when they'd even closed the distance between them, so lost was she in her thoughts it seemed almost instantaneous. Kuon's one hand rested on Kyoko's hip, the crook of his fingers betrayed his desire to grasp it desperately tight instead of the light and careful manner in which he'd placed it there. His other, she couldn't see well enough to know for sure but she guessed it had to be somewhere near her face. From what she could read in Kyoko's body language, she wasn't uncomfortable with the contact. The tension in her shoulders from earlier was nearly gone.

"Oh if only you could see it," Maria breathed wistfully.

"See what?"

Maria patted at her sides for a moment, appearing to check the contents of her pockets. Coming up empty, she snapped her fingers and produced a small oblong stone. Kanae instantly recognized it as an adder stone upon noticing the hole that had been naturally carved through it.

She almost laughed. They were literally standing in a magic accessories shop, there were at least five similar stones displayed on the small shelf near the register and several more in the back room where they were now huddled. This one was higher quality of course, probably sourced in some exotic mountainous region where years of pounding river water exploited the weak point in the stone. The ones she sold were, for the most part, manufactured within certain specifications to make sure they were suitable for magical use.

The chill from the stone seeped into her fingertips so she made sure to keep it far enough away from her face so that her cheek wouldn't have to share the experience. She held it so gingerly that she nearly dropped it when she looked through it to where Kyoko and Kuon stood. It slipped just a scant fraction of a millimeter before she tightened her grip and stared, open mouthed at the sight before her.

Sure, she already knew what Kyoko's aura looked like. The sunny yellow that surrounded her was an accurate representation of her usual temperament—though less so in recent days, mostly due to the man who now held her in his arms. She couldn't comment on the man in question as she'd never had the opportunity to observe his before, but the cobalt radiating from him didn't seem like a mismatch either.

It was the color she saw forming between them that took her breath away.

One aura melded into the other and where they met, it was nigh stupefying. Try as she might, Kanae's attention refused to remain on the way their faces closed in on each other. She was too taken in by what she saw going on around them. It was amethysts and lilacs. It was fields and fields of lavender stretched out before her. It billowed and twisted and steadily grew until the golds and the blues disappeared and violet was all that remained.

Kanae's mouth was bone dry and the fact that it refused to close only made it worse. Her breath was nothing more than short huffs that barely filled her lungs. Still, she managed to dislodge her tongue from where it felt fused to her teeth.

"What—what was that?!"

She heard Maria's quiet chuckle. It had the dreamy lightness of a collector who finally found the piece they fervently sought for decades.

"That, I believe, is what Lory Takarada would call 'meant to be'."

* * *

 **BECAUSE YOU NEEDED TO SEE THIS FROM OUTSIDE EYES FIRST. I actually had to write half of the dialogue for the next chapter just to write this one. So, you know what that means…**

 **...Yep, it'll be at least another two weeks until the next chapter is done ^^;**

 **See you then!**

 **AUTHOR OUT**


	19. Loosening Up Tied Ends

**CHAPTER 19: Loosening Up Tied Ends**

Kyoko picked up the large chunks of wax that had scattered from the candle that suffered an calamitous meeting with the floor. It was the best distraction she could make up on the fly to avoid looking at him. Kanae and Maria had already vacated the room, so she had little else to focus on. Once she'd collected the pieces, and her thoughts for the most part (read: she had barely collected them at all and most of them were still running amok like unsupervised children through her mind) she turned to face him again.

"Come on, we've always operated on fair trade." Kuon stood there with his arms folded across his chest. "What are you keeping from me?"

"Why?" She threw her arms wildly into the air. "Why do I have to tell you?!"

"I told you about the dreams that only my parents know about. Not to mention this whole thing apparently involves me," his tone matched hers in volume and intensity. "Or, at least, the me I used to be. I want to remember who I was, Kyoko. Why won't you let me do that?"

Her arms fell and tightened around her waist. "Because, for that to happen, I have to do something I… don't want to do."

"What is it?"

She just shook her head vigorously and looked at the floor. If she could, she would place telling him very last on her list of things she would like to do and let it stay there until it collected dust and cobwebs, never again to see the light of day. But she couldn't help feeling as if she was being unfair towards him. After overcoming their initial conflicts, Kuon had been nothing but understanding when it came to her; letting her take her time and even opt out of telling him things entirely. Still, this was the one thing she was the most adamant about not sharing with him.

"I told you about my history with him and that was already more than I wanted to share."

She played with the hem of her blouse and shifted uncomfortably as if she would escape her very skin if she were presented with the opportunity. By that point, she couldn't tell if it was the subject matter that was the most discomfiting to her or the fact that she was alone in a room with the second party of said subject matter. Then again, the two things were so wholly intertwined, it was of little consequence to ponder over it.

"But you also seem to regret the mistake you made back then," he pointed out. "I don't understand why you wouldn't want to fix that."

"Because it's my responsibility to bear the consequences of the choice I made."

He took a careful step towards her and her entire body reacted by doing it's best impression of a marble statue. Noticing this, halted his advance.

"You keep saying that, but you made that choice based on the very limited knowledge you had at the time," he sighed in frustration and she could see the tension in the hand he raked through his hair. "Now that you know more, now that you know me better, shouldn't you reconsider?"

"I'm not following."

Another sigh. "I mean, didn't you essentially get what you wanted?"

Scowling, she glared at him. "How is this even _close_ to what I wanted?"

"You said that everything happened too fast and you barely knew who I was at that time," he explained. "Now that we've basically spent an entire month together, is that still true? You know who I am, even the parts of me I probably couldn't—didn't want to share with you."

"So?" she mocked out of sheer defensiveness.

"So why are you fighting this so hard?"

"Because I'm scared!" She screamed and she could tell it shook him from head to toe, but he didn't relent.

"Why?"

"It's too convenient. Love doesn't just fall into your lap like this." She gestured between them. "It never has before."

"And you're basing this off of, what, a handful of experiences?"

Kyoko's nose wrinkled with disgust and she reeled back. "How many times do you think I've been in love?"

He just shrugged. "You tell me."

"Once."

He frowned, letting his arms go limp and his shoulders sag, seemingly under the weight of her words. His eyes were less wild and more sympathetic.

"Kyoko," his voice softened. "There are about as many different loves as there are people in this world. Just because you had difficulties with one idiot, doesn't mean everyone else is like that. And it doesn't mean that every love is like that."

"I know that now," she sniffled, the threat of tears suddenly very real and very near. "That doesn't mean I'm any less scared. Even if all I have to do is tell you how I truly felt about him or, well, you that doesn't make it any easier to actually do it."

"Is—Is that how you can reverse the effects of the spell?"

The answering nod came before she could do anything to stop it. Just like how her previous words came out of her mouth without any preamble or warning. To think that she was of the opinion that _she_ was being unfair. Whatever he was doing to coax this information out of her definitely made him the unfair one.

"Listen, I don't know the extent of what he— _I_ felt for you at that time. By the way, it's super confusing and awkward talking about myself like this," he interjected with a shake of his head. "Anyway, it's probably an order of magnitude greater than what I feel now."

"What you feel…" she slowly repeated his words back to him, her brow pushed into deep wrinkles before it flattened out again and her eyes widened.

"I wouldn't argue that passionately and often with you if I felt nothing towards you, you know."

The flush of color one his cheeks that accompanied his shy admission fully obliterated whatever she planned to say next. The pressure of tears against her eyes abated in an instant. Her words fell apart and only a squeak came out.

"Kyoko," he begged. "Please tell me. I want to know."

She shook her head again, only barely this time, and refused to look at him. "I can't."

"Then—"

He stepped forward again and she could feel the barely-there press of his shirt against hers. When she felt the warmth of his hand on her hip, she looked up before she could even consider stopping herself. He was close enough that she could see every shade of green in his eyes even if she didn't want to. Because his eyes had picked up where his words left off, imploring her and locking her gaze with his own. Try as she might, she couldn't look away so she stared helplessly back at him.

His other hand had, at some point during which she was otherwise unaware, had snuck its way up to her face. It pressed softly against her cheek, the heat from his palm a stark contrast to the chill she felt from his fingertips. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood up in a strange mix of protest, fear and excitement. The hair on her head entertained ideas of doing so as well when he brought his face closer, stopping just short of their noses touching. She had no idea how she was able to register the feel of his breath against her face when she was certain her own internal temperature had elevated to dangerous enough levels that it should have been eclipsed.

"Then," he continued in a whisper, "pull me closer or push me away. The choice is yours. I'll wait right here. Just like this."

She heard him swallow and watched the flicker of his tongue skimming across his lips. Unconscious of her own actions, she did the same.

"If you can't tell me, I'll wait just like this and you can show me."

The spike of adrenaline coursing through her said it was now or never. The twitch in her fingers said all systems were prepped and ready for action. The tingle in her lips said there was no backing out this time. So, she begrudgingly told the adrenaline that now would be acceptable. She told her hands and her lips that she would need every ounce of energy they could produce. Then, she slowly curled her fingers into his shirt and tugged him forward.

And she showed him.

She showed him with every last shred of emotion she had. She used her mouth, her hands, her entire being to convey to him the words she could never let herself say. It was neither elegant nor eloquent by any means. It was more the nonverbal equivalent of a desperate chorus of _I missed you. I need you. I loveyouloveyouloveyou_ played at full volume and a runaway tempo _._ But it got the point across.

The air around them felt heavy and charged with an abundance of something they couldn't name. And, when the need for oxygen became a higher priority than the need to tightly embrace, they held each other and breathed in silence. His chin rested atop her head while he stroked a hand through her hair, causing a shiver to pass through her.

"You know, when I left that scarf in your apartment, I thought I could use it as an excuse to see you again," he mumbled the words into her hair as if he was self-conscious about them.

Kyoko should have been shocked, but couldn't bring herself to be. Whatever reaction of surprise she normally would have made turned into a small laugh. An odd feeling of peace had settled within her and she was loathe to surrender it.

"So you planned this the whole time?"

"Not all of it, obviously. There's no way I could have reasonably predicted any of this would happen. But," he paused to press a kiss to her head, "you can't deny that the end result was the same."

* * *

 **SHE SURE SHOWED HIM! Honestly, this chapter gave me no small amount of grief. You'd think it would be easy, right? They talk, she gives in, there are smooches. Nope, my brain just decided to go on temporary hiatus with this until I all but smacked it back into action.**

 **Anyway, you're not here to read author notes. Proceed to the next chapter because I know that's what you really want.**

 **AUTHOR OUT!**


	20. The Wonderful of Something Started

**CHAPTER 20 (Epilogue): The Wonderful of Something Started**

He waited just out of sight as the physical manifestation of his heart walked onto the stage to stand at the podium and face the impressive gathering of people. The wobble in her knees and tremor in her voice that he noticed not two seconds prior were completely gone and he smiled with pride. The auditorium at LME was packed that evening to the point that some people had to stand along the back wall.

Beside him, he heard Maria's light, happy sigh. She'd been excitedly chattering away with her daughter mere minutes earlier, before shooing her away to go enjoy the lecture. His own family was out there somewhere, though he couldn't see them from where he stood and he could only just make out the outline of Yukihito's glasses from where he sat three seats down from Kanae in the front row. He looked down at Maria to see her also wearing a rapturous smile while she watched the young woman be formally introduced to the audience.

"Who would've guessed that this would ever be happening?"

His answering chuckle was soft. "I certainly didn't. For one thing, I never would've guessed you'd let the key to your family's biggest secret be revealed."

"You two found it on your own, there wasn't much I could do to stop you. I figured, at the very least I could offer my blessing and support while you worked tirelessly to compile the data and release your findings." Maria shrugged, twisting her lips into a wry grin as she looked to one side. "Besides, we both know it's technically not the biggest secret. I still have one that I'm keeping to myself. Well, the two of you and Ms. Kotonami being the exceptions."

His lips stretched wider and he looked back out to where Kyoko stood. "I think it's safe with us."

They fell silent when the applause died down and Kyoko's voice projected across the filled auditorium.

"Two years ago, I made a mistake," she began, then stopped and laughed. "Actually I made several mistakes. But the first one was casting this spell."

An enlarged page, nearly four times her size, with Lory Takarada's True Love Seeking Spell transcribed on it floated a couple meters above her head. She pointed up to it and waited for the shocked whispers and gasps to work their way through the crowd. Kyoko emphatically nodded along with them, folding her arms across her chest.

"I know, right? First thing they teach you in magical studies is to explicitly avoid doing this," her shoulders lifted in an exaggerated shrug and she sighed loudly. "In my very shoddy defense, I wasn't thinking clearly and my most recent relationship at that time had just come to a very messy end." She leaned towards the audience as if she were secretly confiding in them. "Trust me, you don't want to know the details. Honestly, I feel the most sorry for the poor buffet table."

That earned her a wave of rumbling laughter from the audience. This seemed to spur her on and she grinned while pacing the length of the stage.

"I don't know if I should be jealous that she's a more charismatic presenter than I am or not," Maria remarked just loudly enough to be heard over the din of voices.

"Well, if anything, that's thanks to you," he countered. "If it weren't for you, she wouldn't have faced the things she hid away from and became a better version of herself."

He noticed her surveying him from head to toe. "The same applies to you, doesn't it?"

"I think that goes without saying."

Maria only nodded and they returned their focus to the young woman on the stage.

"My next mistake was failing to translate a very important rune," Kyoko pointed at the spell above her again. "I thought it said love _avoidance_. Again, I wasn't in my right mind. It's not an excuse, I realize this. It's just what it is."

The audience remained silent, waiting to discover where all this exposition would lead.

"Anyway, this led me to finding my supposed true love, who just so happens to be this guy," she gestured to where he waited just offstage.

A sudden attack of nerves pulsed through him and his feet decided they'd rather stay put than move. He'd done things far scarier than this. It seemed contradictory that now was the time his fight or flight response would be triggered.

"I guess that's my cue," he said it more as an encouragement to step forward than anything else.

"I'd say 'knock 'em dead' but I know you can manage that with your looks alone," Maria joked, nudging him with her elbow. "You both worked hard to get here and this is a big deal. In more ways than one. Take some time to enjoy the spotlight while you can."

He felt her push him again and his feet finally started moving. The immediate reaction was a combination of whistles and excited chatter as he approached where Kyoko stood. She took it all in stride and waved a dismissive hand towards the crowd.

"I know, I know!" she shouted in agreement, pointing between herself and him. "I didn't believe it either. I refused to! Seriously, who would _ever_ believe that their true love was this good looking, much less the head of a prominent coven. Much less the son of Kuu and Julie Hizuri. I mean, come on, never in my life would I presume I'd be that lucky."

He laughed and came to a stop right beside her, meeting her smile with his own before turning to face the audience.

"But she was," he stated simply. "Then again, so was I."

"We were both lucky." Her grin was wide and effusive. "And today we get to tell you all about how we solved a puzzle that baffled the magic community for decades while falling in love along the way."

 **The end**

 **(and the beginning)**

* * *

 _ **(If you immediately came to this chapter and are wholly confused, YOU WENT TOO FAR! Go back one chapter and read what you missed. This was another dual chapter release.)**_

 **THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK!**

 **Seriously, I was having the worst time trying to write the previous chapter and it took me two weeks to realize it was because my brain was obsessed with writing the end first. So I let it do what it wanted and, bam, chapter 19 happened in no time flat.**

 **Thank you to everyone who came on this one-and-a-half year journey with me. It was amazing and I loved every excruciating second of it (yes, even the hard parts). Now I can hear some of you wondering if I'd ever consider writing a continuation. I won't lie that the thought has crossed my mind, but I feel like I'm content to leave the story as it is. For now, at least.**

 **Thank you, thank you, thank you for the encouraging reviews and the messages of support on Discord. I love you all and I am so happy to finally have more time to work on finishing up Anomalous because I realized way too late that writing both at the same time was a lot more than I could handle. You are gems and I am lucky to have you as my readers.**

 **Hugs and kisses,**

 **Aikori**


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